


Loose In A Hospital

by skulls_and_stripes



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Inspired by John Mulaney, John Mulaney References, LGBTQ Themes, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Plot Twists, how many fics were inspired by this skit, very strategic use of epithets, watch me rewrite my own fic for hte 4th time in a row. very sexy of me i think, why are those two even tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/skulls_and_stripes
Summary: "I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents, because there’s a horse loose in the hospital. It’s never happened before, no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse. He’s never been in a hospital before, he’s as confused as you are."An attempt to find her biological family sends Hollyhock on a journey to find out just how BoJack is related to the teenage horse, in a very roundabout way.
Relationships: BoJack Horseman/Herb Kazzaz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herb finds himself bored at a party.

It’s getting harder and harder to squeeze through the crowds. He’s always been sort of _on the fence_ about the whole idea of someone else’s party being hosted in his house, in the sense that he knows exactly which side of the fence he _wants_ to be on but can’t hop down for fear of being immediately run over by a dog. He just tries to stick close to the wall, as if that makes him invisible, but the only result is that nobody talks to him, not even to ask how he’s _doing_ or how he feels about the party being hosted _here_ of all places, or why he seems so _tired._

He has to god damn _wave_ at Diane for her to even notice him. At some point in the 90s, he gained the ability to perfectly blend in at parties for the sake of his own sanity, and nobody asked him if he knew that horse that was throwing up in the washing machine. It has its downsides, though.

“Shit, sorry,” she has to almost _yell_ to be heard over the steady bass of whatever pop song is being played at top volume. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of an expert at pretending not to exist at parties.”

“Any chance you could give me a lesson?” she asks, smirking.

“Oh, I dunno.” He grins. “Gotta keep _some_ things up my sleeve, you know.” He pauses anxiously, rolling up the fabric of his sleeves. “Yeesh, the weather’s a goddamn nightmare.”

“It is kinda acting up.”

“My phone _said_ it would be cold, so I brought my good jacket. But now it’s not _quite_ cold, but too cold to take the jacket off, so I’m just stuck here being uncomfortable.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you get a different jacket?”

“Ugh, we keep the bedrooms locked whenever Mr. Peanutbutter has a party. It’s a privacy thing. It’d be a whole thing to unlock it. It was BJ’s turn to hold the keys, and I’m _pretty_ sure he’s shitfaced by now.” He kicks the wall with the back of his heel in frustration. “Why is the weather so unpredictable in California, which is the state that we live in, in September, the month that it currently is?”

“Maybe you’re just bad with temperatures?”

“Yeah, that’s possible.” He hesitates, leaning against the wall. “So… he’s definitely serious about this?” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

“...Have you tried --”

“Talking sense into him? Yeah, I think his ears just … _turn off.”_

“Yeah, I can see that happening.” He frowns. “Hey, Diane?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you two fighting over this?”

“Almost constantly, but -- it’s fine.” She waves a hand dismissively. _“Any_ minute now, he’s gonna realise that he is not even _remotely_ prepared for this.”

“You sure?” He raises an eyebrow, frowning deeply. “Because, I have known Mr. Peanutbutter since 1993, and he has not _once_ realised _anything.”_

“You don’t know that,” she says defensively.

“Oh, okay. What’s he realised, then? In the decade that you’ve known him?”

Diane is silent for a long time.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He grins. “If you want, _I_ can try talking sense into him.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You think that’ll work?”

“No, but I think you need a break. You know where he is?” 

“Probably with Todd.”

“And where’s todd?”

“Uh, last I saw him, he was carrying a comically large amount of ketchup. Check the kitchen, or outside, whichever you’d prefer to be cleaning up tomorrow morning.”

“Ah, Schrodinger’s ketchup. I love it.” He vaguely waves a goodbye, then goes outside. He’s _incredibly_ relieved to discover that there’s no mess to clean up, only a comically large pyramid made entirely of ketchup bottles. He frowns at it. “Uh, what’s with the pyramid?”

“It would have just fallen down if it was a tower,” Todd explains.

“...Oh.” His frown deepens. “So, wait, what’s up with the --”

“Ah, typical Herb. Asking too many questions.” He rather rudely flicks Herb’s nose, grinning. “Trust me, give it a week and ketchup pyramids will be even more popular than fidget spinners.”

Herb groans. “I am _so_ sick of hearing about fidget spinners.”

“Oh, we all are.”

“I don’t understand _why_ they’re so popular in 2017, which is the year that it currently is.” 

“I read online somewhere that they’re actually helpful accessibility tools for people with autism.”  
  
“Yeah, I know. I don’t have a problem with them. I actually think they’re pretty neat. But they’re _everywhere!”_ He groans. “Can’t I just live my life? Without being surrounded by unfunny jokes about fidget spinners?”

“Ugh, I know how you feel.”

“Going into the ‘popular’ section of YouTube makes me feel like I’ve been transported to a parallel universe where people routinely spend thousands of dollars on fidget spinners just to cut them with thousand-degree knives.”

“Yeah, that is weird.”

“Anyway -- have you seen Mr. Peanutbutter?” He grimaces. “I wanted to talk to him about the campaign.”

“His campaign to become governor of California? The one at which we are currently at a party to promote, which is inexplicably being hosted at _your_ house?”

“Yes, that one. I was going to ask him about his political opinions.”

“I don’t think he has any.”

Herb blinks. “Any … political opinions?”

“Whenever he gets into political arguments, he just listens to both sides for a weirdly long time and then says, ‘I agree with you _both’.”_

“...And he thinks he’s a _politician?”_

“Eh, I didn’t really think it was my place to tell him what he couldn’t do in life.”

“...But to be a _politician_ you have to --” He smacks himself in the forehead. “You know what? I’m not gonna bother. Do you know where he is?”

“Last I saw, he was with BoJack.”

“Oh, God.” The last time BoJack was drunk and talked to Mr. Peanutbutter, he brought an _entire restaurant_ in an attempt to impress Herb. When that didn’t work, he got even _more_ drunk, and stole a letter from what is now known exclusively as the _Ollywood_ sign. In his defense, it _was_ pretty impressive. “I’d better go keep an eye on that situation.”

He turns and leaves, scanning the crowd. It’s generally not hard to find BoJack in a crowd. He’s very tall, and usually doing something very notably stupid, which is difficult to explain to all of the guests but a good bonus when he needs to find him quickly. After a few moments of searching he can see him in the kitchen, but it takes significantly longer to _get_ there, squeezing through the crowds that seem to be actively _trying_ to hinder him. 

Halfway there his goddamn _phone_ starts ringing, of all things. It takes him several seconds to even _find_ his phone -- this outfit has _far_ too many pockets, and almost every time he puts his phone away he picks a different one, and the party is making so much noise he can’t figure out exactly _where_ the ringtone is coming from. He finally gets it, and sees that it’s an unknown number. Unknown numbers very rarely have anything important to say, and he couldn’t hear the caller in this noise anyway, so he hangs up and finishes his walk to the kitchen. “Hey, BJ. Hey, Mr. Peanutbutter.” 

“Hey,” slurs BoJack.

“Great to see you!” says Mr. Peanutbutter enthusiastically.

“Good to see you too!” says Herb. It’s half true, if he’s being generous. “How’s your campaign going?”

“Well, am I the protagonists of the movie _IT?”_ He grins. “Because, I haven’t actually seen the movie or read the book, but _presumably_ I am killing it!”

Herb steps on BoJack’s foot to pre-emptively silence whatever drunken insult he was about to say. “Well, that’s good to hear. What are your political opinions?” 

Mr. Peanutbutter tilts his head. “Political … opinions?”

“He’s in support of fracking,” says BoJack helpfully. “Fracking in his own backyard, in fact.”

“Yeah, Diane told me about that.” He frowns. “So, I have this friend Sarah Lynn who kinda knows about architecture, and um … her advice is to _absolutely not_ allow fracking near this house unless you enjoy being trapped underground in the destroyed remains of your home.”

Mr. Peanutbutter considers this. “I think I could find a way to enjoy that situation.” 

“I would advise you to instead find a way to _avoid_ that highly preventable situation, but I guess it’s not my house, so I don’t have much say in it.” He sighs. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to enlighten me on your _other_ political views?”

Mr. Peanutbutter’s ears shoot up in excitement. “I’d _love_ to!” he exclaims. “In fact, I’ll _happily_ stand here all night explaining --” He turns his head sharply. “Oh, my good friend Eric! Is that a Hatsune Miku binder?” 

He rushes off to go talk to Eric, leaving BoJack and Herb alone. Herb narrows his eyes. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah, I am _incredibly_ sugar high right now.” 

Herb groans. “Who gave you cotton candy?”

“I dunno. Stranger.” He grins. “But, it’s keeping me awake.” 

“I _kind_ of think that you should try having a functional sleep schedule instead of just eating sugar until you throw up, but I guess it’s not my body.”

BoJack shoots him a glare. “Hey, I haven’t thrown up yet!”

“Yet?”

BoJack considers this for a moment or several. The sugar is speeding his heart rate up, but the alcohol brings his thought process down. “Well, we don’t _know_ that I’ll throw up.”

“The fact that you’re saying it like that seems to indicate that you’re already feeling nauseous.”

“Yeah, but I’ve only had, like, three drinks. So I’m _basically_ clean and sober.”

“Yeah, I highly doubt that.”

“This party’s getting boring. Any idea when Penis-bother--” he giggles immaturely at his own joke -- “is gonna start to clear out?”

“I made him promise he’d be out by midnight.” He pauses. “Don’t call him Penis. Makes him sound more edible than he actually is.”

BoJack shoots him an offended look. “Excuse me? You can just _tell_ that my dick is bigger than his.”

Herb raises an eyebrow. “Uhh…”

“I’m not saying that based on our dick sizes,” explains BoJack, somewhat reassuringly. “You see, having a big dick is about more than just what’s in your pants. It’s a _lifestyle._ His dick? So small he has to run for governor of California to compensate. I don’t even think he knows that a governor is.” He pauses. “Also. I was once in a public bathroom with him, and --”

Herb bursts out laughing. “You were looking at another guy’s _dick_ in a public bathroom?”

“Hey, it was just to prove that I have a bigger dick than him! And, I do.” He smirks. “Not like I’m _gay,_ or anything.”

“BJ, you’re literally married to a man. That’s pretty gay.”

 _“You’re_ gay.” 

“Yes, this has already been _firmly_ established.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Anything else? While you’re pretending to be a middle schooler?”

BoJack thinks this over for a moment. Grinning, he slurs, “I had _alcohol.”_

“I know, BJ, just like the grown-ups.” He pats his shoulder. 

BoJack smirks. “You’re _way_ too short to pretend I’m twelve.”

“I _am_ not, I’m -- god damn it.” He takes out his phone and discovers that the reason it’s ringing again is to alert him to another call from an unknown number. “Ugh, these are some persistent telemarketers.”

“Telemarketers?” He raises an eyebrow. “Herb, it’s ten at night. What sort of telemarketer works at ten in the evening?”

“I dunno. An annoying one.” He frowns. “My writer sense is tingling.”

BoJack’s eyes widen. “You have a writer sense?”

“Yes, a writer’s sense,” he explains. “It’s like Chekhov’s gun. If our lives were a book, then the main character getting a _bunch_ of missed calls would _definitely_ be plot-relevant later on.”

“Well,” replies BoJack, grinning. “You’re the writer here. _How_ would it be plot-relevant? Spin me up a story.”

“Well…” He gestures vaguely, thinking it over for a moment. “Depends what kind of story, really. If it’s a crime-based thriller, then it’s probably the police department desperately trying to get in touch with the amateur detective main character, because he’s done _nothing_ but cause problems for the professionals with his sheer confidence and lack of respect for authority, but he’s also smarter than any of them, and they _need_ him to catch the latest serial killer.”

BoJack’s mouth falls open. “...Wow.”

 _“Or,_ if it’s more of a mystery horror thing, then it’s the main antagonist, calling the character who appears for one scene in the prologue. If they answer, he’ll say something cryptic but threatening, and then it’ll turn out he was in their house the whole time waiting to kill them.” His eyes are wide by now, hands clasped as he excitedly rambles through an explanation. “Or, fantasy! You’re the chosen one. Don’t ask how the wizard got a phone.”

BoJack grins. “...Sci-fi?”

“Oh, easy. There’s a problem with the mainframe of the spaceship and/or time machine. You don’t respond in time, so it crashes and you have to reverse the polarity to fix it.”

“Reverse what polarity?”

“The polarity of the neutron flow.”

 _“What_ neutron flow?” He frowns. “Wait, aren’t neutrons … _neutral?_ So again, what polarity?”

Herb clicks his teeth. “Great job, BJ, asking exactly the questions sci-fi authors _don’t_ ask themselves.”

“What about _us?”_ He grins, pointing to Herb’s phone. “If _we_ were in a book, what would the phone calls mean?”

“Easy,” deadpans Herb. “It’s Todd, trying to get us to bail him out of prison, but we don’t think to answer because we’re too busy impulse-buying restaurants and stealing letters from what is now known as the _Ollywood_ sign.”

BoJack shoots him a defensive look. “Hey, I only did that _one_ time.”

“How many times are you _supposed_ to end up in that very specific, very convoluted situation?”

“I’d say around the third time is when you have the right to tell me off about it. And I wouldn’t have brought the restaurant in the first place if Penis-bother hadn’t brought shit to impress Diane.”

“I think we’ve already had the talk about how Penis-bother is a problematic nickname.” He pauses. “I mean, let’s actually think about this. Aside from Todd, our lives are slice-of-life, right?” 

“Aside from Todd, yeah, I guess.” He looks over to a corner of the house, where Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter are yelling at each other. “More of a drama, really.” After a pause, he realises Eric is still there, in his miku binder. “...Comedy-drama.”

“Well, it’s a drama, then. What do they try to contact the protagonist about in a comedy-drama?” He grins. “He took a two-minute vacation and while he was gone, _loads_ of shit happened. And oh no, Cathy’s pregnant! And it’s not his!” He smacks his hands to his face in mock surprise. “The _perfect_ comedy-drama formula -- the _drama_ of all the issues going on, plus the dramatic _irony_ of the protagonist not knowing anything about it, culminating in the punchline where he walks back in completely unphased and says, ‘What did I miss?’”

“Nice spiel,” deadpans BoJack. “But the call’s from an unknown number. Why wouldn’t he have Cathy saved in his phone?”

Herb visibly falters, but quickly regains his bearings. “Then it’s a long-lost relative trying to get in touch with her biological family. There’s a deep emotional subplot of her struggling with her family issues, but her status as a newcomer also allows her to fill the role of a straight man to the main characters’ antics.”

BoJack’s eyes widen, impressed. “Wow, you’ve clearly thought a _lot_ about this.”

“Thought a lot, in the last two minutes that we’ve been talking about it for? Yeah, sure.”

“You’ve clearly been writing for too long.”

“You can say that again.” He smirks. “Legend has it, if a writer works tirelessly for twenty years, they might write an entire paragraph.”

“You know, I actually wouldn’t mind having a long-lost relative show up to act as the straight man to our antics.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably just a telemarketer.” He wraps an arm around BoJack’s shoulders. “No long-lost-relative mystery plot here, BJ. This is _real life.”_

A flaming lemur bursts through the wall behind them, leaving a clear-cut lemur-shaped hole in the wall, and then proceeds to run around the house for a bit while on fire, screaming _“Lemur on fire, lemur on fire!!!”_ to anyone who will listen. 

Herb doesn’t bat an eye. “Oh, who invited Sarah Lynn’s friends?”

“Probably Sarah Lynn,” answers BoJack nonchalantly.

“Who invited her?”

“Probably Sarah Lynn. She just goes wherever she wants.” He nonchalantly sips from his drink. “So Mr. Peanutbutter’s _really_ serious about this governor thing?”

“I’m afraid he might be.” 

“It’ll fall apart the _second_ the voters realise he doesn’t even _have_ political opinions. That’s, like, the bare minimum for being a politician.”

BoJack scoffs. “Have you _met_ the voters?”

Herb pouts. “Are you saying everyone in California is an idiot?”

“It’s not about whether they’re _idiots,”_ snaps BoJack. “It’s the system. A complete _idiot_ with _no_ political experience being in the running because people liked him as an actor isn’t the problem, it’s just a symptom of the system. Regardless of how _smart_ they are, there are people who will benefit from having a total idiot in charge, because it lets them stay as powerful as they are right now. And the people who want _change_ are the people that aren’t powerful, so their votes don’t matter. Their attempts to make a change are suppressed at every turn.”

Herb’s eyes widen. “Yeesh, are you sure that was _entirely_ about Mr. Peanutbutter?”

“Mm-hmm,” confirms BoJack. “That was a spur-of-the-moment analysis of the American political system that was _only_ inspired by Mr. Peanutbutter’s surprise success in his campaign to run for governor of California for _literally_ no reason, with absolutely _no_ larger subtext.” He clears his throat. “Man, this party _sucks.”_

“It does,” agrees Herb.

“Wanna go upstairs and bang?”

“BJ!” scolds Herb. “We’re at a _party._ Sarah Lynn might destroy the walls of our bedroom at any moment and that would be _so_ awkward. Plus, we’re meant to be the _hosts._ It would be so _rude_ to disappear halfway through the night.”

BoJack makes eye contact with him. Herb looks away. BoJack wriggles his eyebrows.

“...On second thought,” says Herb. “Politeness is bullshit."

"Good. I've been waiting all night to get some." He puts his drink down, ready to go upstairs, and then kneels over and vomits a comically large amount of cotton candy onto the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh if the line "“Oh, my good friend Eric! Is that a Hatsune Miku binder?” doesnt tell you exactly how seriously this fic takes itself, then i dont know what to tell you


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herb receives an important phone call; Todd has an idea for a reverse super bowl.

There’s a ringing in his ears that simply won’t seem to stop. He can’t remember everything he took last night -- there was his usual concerningly large amount of vodka, plus whatever the hell the punch was spiked with, and some ambiguous pills -- but his head is absolutely  _ pounding.  _ He can’t even begin to think about getting out of bed until after ten in the morning, and upon waking up he almost immediately vomits the remains of the cotton candy.

“You’re welcome,” deadpans Herb, once he manages to drag himself into the living room.

BoJack attempts to look up. “Hmm?”

“I cleaned up the house after the party, at the cost of my own sleep, while you puked a  _ ridiculous  _ amount of cotton candy, and then went to sleep for  _ twelve hours  _ immediately after we had sex.” He gives BoJack a blank stare. “So, you’re welcome.”

“Thanks,” BoJack attempts to say. He groans. “I’m gonna call Sarah Lynn and ask her --”

“‘Sup.” He turns sharply. Sarah Lynn is grinning at him. He glares.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since around eight,” she answers. “I don’t know  _ how  _ you stayed asleep for the last two hours. At one point we had a literal screaming competition.”

“Yeah, I passed out.” He frowns. “So what are you  _ doing  _ here?”   
“Well, I  _ came  _ to help Todd with his latest idea, but if you want, I can come up with a mixture of drugs that will postpone your hangover until  _ tomorrow  _ morning. But, I’m gonna warn you, it’ll be  _ way  _ worse.”

A small crack of relief spreads across BoJack’s face. “Mm, please.”

“Yeah, sure.” She turns to Todd. “You should probably start brewing more coffee.”

BoJack jolts. “I don’t drink coffee.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “...But you’re half asleep.”

“Throw some amphetamines in or something. I  _ don’t  _ drink coffee.”

Sarah Lynn stares at him, then shrugs. She manages to mix together a drink that only  _ just  _ cancels out his hangover, at the cost of temporarily destroying his colour vision and putting him at high risk for an overdose if he so much as has a  _ drop  _ of anything else. He drinks it eagerly, and as he waits for it to kick in, he asks, “So what’s Todd’s scheme today?”

“I’m glad you asked!” says Todd. Herb gives BoJack a look that pretty clearly indicates that  _ he’s  _ not glad he asked. “So, I was talking with Mr. Peanutbutter yesterday, about how if he gets the governor role, we should see about managing to promote him in the 2018 Super Bowl.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “...And?”

“And then I started thinking,” he continues. “The Super Bowl, it’s basically just a super long football game with a short concert in the middle, right?” When BoJack nods to indicate that he’s following along, he finishes, “So, what about the  _ opposite  _ of that?”

BoJack stares at him. “I think that would just be a long concert with a short football game in the middle.”

_ “Exactly!”  _ Grinning ear to ear, he picks up a soccer ball resting on the kitchen bench. “We’re giving it a test run in your yard before we propose it to Mr. Peanutbutter. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” says BoJack.

“So do I,” says Herb.

“Then why are you doing it?” asks BoJack.

“Excellent question,” says Todd.

Herb slams his head against the table. “This is all my fault,” he says sulkily. “Todd asked if we could play one-on-one soccer and I said yes. I thought it was  _ normal  _ one-on-one soccer.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow at him. “Why would you think  _ anything  _ involving Todd is normal?”

“I dunno. Wishful thinking?” His phone starts ringing. He stares at the lock screen for a moment, then answers the call. The caller says something incoherent and his eyes widen. “...One moment.” He moves his hands over the receiver. “So, this is going to be a  _ long  _ phone call, and you might hear me swearing very loudly and very frequently.”

“Oh,” says Todd, frowning. “Does that mean you can’t play?”

“Obviously.”

“...Oh.” He gives BoJack a pleading look. 

BoJack groans. “I am  _ not  _ playing soccer with you for your inane reverse Super Bowl idea. I mean,” He throws up his hands in frustration. “The Super Bowl isn’t even soccer. It’s football.”

“...And?”

As Herb begins pacing and listening to the phone, he hesitates, then sighs. “...Okay, fine. But if a window gets broken, I’m not paying.”

* * *

It takes about ten minutes for a window to get broken. BoJack, true to his promise of not paying for it, doesn’t even acknowledge the pile of glass that falls to the floor apart from to glance inside to make sure Herb’s wearing shoes. He is, so BoJack sees no reason to make cleaning it up a priority, let alone fixing it. 

“...Shit,” says Todd, actually somewhat concerned. “Should we, uh, should we do something about that?”

“Ask Herb if he wants to,” says Sarah Lynn.

“Hey, Herb, can you clean that up?”

Herb continues to pace while talking on the phone, completely deaf to the request.  _ “Eight  _ of you?!” he says into the phone. “I mean, I’m not gonna judge, it’s just --  _ eight?!  _ I can barely handle  _ one,  _ and you have  _ seven?!”  _ He pauses. “No, sorry, you’re right,” he resumes in a considerably more professional tone. “That was off-topic. So, the thing is, BJ is  _ completely  _ unfit to--”

“I think he’s busy,” says BoJack.

“Well, that sucks,” says Sarah Lynn. “I guess the glass is just staying there.”

Todd frowns. “Won’t we have to clean it up when we call the guy to repair it?”

“I thought I made it clear that I’m  _ not  _ paying for repairs,” says BoJack.

“So you’re just going to  _ leave  _ the glass there? Like, indefinitely? That sounds dangerous.”

He shrugs. “If you really want to not have a broken window then you should call your own repairman.”

“But that’s gonna be, like, a grand!” protests Todd. “And I’m unemployed and mooching off you and Herb, as I have been since 2009, remember?”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you get eight million dollars or something from that Cabracadabra bullshit?”

“I tipped it to a waitress, so now I’m broke again.”

“I’ll pay,” says Sarah Lynn. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a comically large wad of cash, which she carelessly tosses to Todd. Todd, who has never seen so much cash at once in his life, holds it very carefully like he thinks it’s going to explode if he moves his eyes.

“...Wow,” he says, mouth open in shock. “Thanks.”

BoJack’s eyes widen.”That’s … weirdly generous of you, Sarah Lynn.” 

“...It is.” Her eyes widen. “Holy  _ shit,  _ why did I do that?!” 

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “Uh, because you can afford it, and you’re not as stubborn as me and Herb?” 

“Yes, but  _ why?!”  _ She starts tearing her hair out. “My impulse control is in the toilet! Oh my God, is anything real?!” 

Todd stares at her. “...I’m pretty sure things are real.”

“I’m going to stab myself!” she threatens, completely ignoring both of them. “Gah!” She kicks a wall in frustration. “I don’t even know who I am anymore!” She holds up her leg, displaying her foot to both BoJack and Todd. “I brought these shoes  _ completely  _ on impulse!”

BoJack squints. “They’re nearly identical to your old shoes.”

“Exactly!” She throws up her hands in frustration. “And there was  _ nothing  _ wrong with my old shoes! Yesterday, I messaged someone on social media to ask them to block me. I didn’t even  _ want  _ them to block me!”

Todd raises an eyebrow. “...Then why did you ask them to --”

_ “I! Don’t! Know!”  _ She screeches a deep, animalistic noise. “I don’t even want my money back! I just want to be able to rationalize my own decisions!” She continues to tear out her hair. “I can’t even read fanfiction anymore because every time I look in the comments section, I see a comment by my ex-friend who’s pretending he never knew me!”

BoJack gives her a blank stare. “...And?”

“I’m going to overdose on iron!  _ Again!”  _ Continuing to scream, she produces a large rope from her pocket, and uses it to jump over the edge of BoJack’s deck and abseil down. BoJack stares down at her, watching to make sure she’s able to land on her feet and run away to cause problems somewhere else. 

He breathes a sigh of relief, and says, without a hint of sarcasm, “Well,  _ that  _ went well.”

Todd stares at him.  _ “That  _ went well?”

“By Sarah Lynn’s standards, yes.”

“She threatened suicide twice.”

“And didn’t follow through either time, so that’s basically a self-care day for her.” After a pause, he adds, “Pity about your idea, though.”

“My ideas almost always end up backfiring like this somehow, so, I’m used to it.”

Herb walks out, shoving his phone into his pocket as he walks. “So, we need to have a discussion.” He frowns. “Where’s Sarah Lynn?”

“She threw a tantrum for no apparent reason and abseiled down,” explains Todd.

“Oh, I thought it might be something like that. It was meant to be a house-members-only discussion, anyway.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “We should … we should go inside.”

BoJack gulps.

“So, here’s the thing,” says Herb, once they’re all inside and sitting around the kitchen table. “BJ has a long-lost half-sister.”

BoJack blinks. His anxious mind had gone through about a thousand different possible situations in the few seconds it took him to walk inside, each one exponentially worse than the last. It started with a lecture about the broken window and ended with a screaming match culminating in Herb demanding a divorce.  _ This,  _ however, had not even begun to speculate on the mere possibility of crossing his mind. 

He blinks again, and then decides he needs a drink. However, when he voices this thought, Herb reminds him of Sarah Lynn’s hangover-postponer, and so he’s forced to confront the conversation in only his usual state of  _ slightly  _ not-sober. “Sorry, could you -- could you explain again?”

“You have a half-sister,” Herb explains. “Her name is Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzarelli-McQuack. She was adopted by a polycule of eight gay men, and she’s seventeen, and for the past year and a half she’s been  _ really  _ insistent on finding her biological family, so they went to the hospital where she was born to see her birth certificate and find her parents. Her mom’s a random woman who happened to work as a maid for the Horseman family in the late 90s; her father is Butterscotch Horseman, who as we all know died in a dueling accident. Which means that the only family she has a chance to meet, is…”

He gestures toward BoJack. BoJack takes a deep breath, struggling to process it. “Her name is  _ what?!” _

“Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzarelli-McQuack,” recites Herb easily.

_ “How  _ did you remember that?!”

“I have a good memory.”

BoJack groans. “And she’s seventeen?”

“Mm-hmm,” confirms Herb. “And she wants to come down to California, to get to know you -- and me, by extension.”

Todd frowns. “Where’s she gonna sleep?”

“In the guest room.”

“But  _ I  _ sleep in the guest room.”

“And you’re not a guest,” says Herb, not looking at him. “So  _ actual  _ guests take priority. You can sleep on the couch, or you can crash with someone else, or something.”

BoJack grimaces. “I hate to be harsh, but … Herb’s got a point, Todd. I mean, you’ve just been mooching off us for  _ eight years  _ now. I’ve had tapeworms that were less parasitic.”

Todd tilts his head. “You’ve had tapeworms?”

Herb ignores him. “I’ve had  _ cancer  _ that was less parasitic. And less of a pain in the ass.” A heavy silence falls on the room. “...Too soon?”

“Too soon,” agrees Todd.”

“I don’t think it’s ever  _ not  _ gonna be too soon,” says BoJack, shuddering.

“Ugh, you guys are so over dramatic. I wasn’t  _ that  _ close to death.”

“Oh, quit acting so above it all. You can make fun of me for not wanting my husband to die all you want, but  _ I’m  _ not the one with the medical trauma.” 

“Medical trauma?” scoffs Herb. “As if. I’m not a pussy.”

“Lose the toxic masculinity, babe. I’m gonna smash your pussy.”

_ “I’m  _ gonna smash  _ your  _ pussy.”

“No,  _ I’m  _ gonna smash  _ your  _ pussy.”

“Your pussy is going to be  _ so  _ smashed, you won’t even be able to --”

Todd slams his head against the table. “Can we  _ please  _ go back to Hollyhock?”

BoJack rolls her eyes. “God, you’re such a prude.”

“I just don’t think this is the  _ time  _ to discuss pussy-smashing.” He pauses. “Also, you both have dicks.”

“Not having a pussy doesn’t mean you can’t get your pussy smashed, Todd.”

“We  _ did  _ get a little off track,” admits Herb. “So, about Hollyhock. Should we let her come?”

BoJack hesitates. “...She’s seventeen?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Ugh, that’s the  _ worst  _ age.” He groans. “What if she has a crush on me?”

Herb cringes. “BJ, she’s your  _ sister.”  _

“Penny was like a sister to me.”

“She was more like a daughter.”

“Well, I expect that having a  _ sister  _ less than half my age is gonna feel more like a daughter, too. It would be  _ so  _ awkward if we had to cancel our annual Michigan vacation with Charlotte’s family because I didn’t want to be in a room with Penny.”

Todd’s eyes widen. “Wait, you cancelled the vacation last year because Penny had a crush on you? You said it was because I was bad at housesitting.”

“That too.”

Herb groans. “There is no  _ way  _ your  _ sister  _ is going to have a crush on you.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” He takes a deep breath. “But, that’s not the only risk with teenagers. What if she’s  _ emo?” _

“BJ,  _ you’re  _ emo.”

“I’m not emo, I’m just depressed.”

“I think you’ve got worse shit than depression going on.”

Todd clears his throat loudly. “Can we  _ please  _ stop getting off track?”

BoJack groans. “It just, it all seems a little  _ fast,  _ you know?” He grimaces. “Like, ten minutes ago I didn’t even know this girl existed. Now she’s going to  _ live  _ with us? For …  _ how  _ long?”

“They didn’t specify,” says Herb uneasily. “I presume she’ll just stay for … as long as she wants to, and as long as we’re willing to have her.” 

“But we don't even  _ know  _ her. And  _ she  _ doesn’t even know  _ us!”  _ He gestures vaguely. “What if she comes here and I’m drunk, and I’m talking about smashing your pussy, and you’re retaliating by talking about smashing  _ my  _ pussy, and she decides biological family is a shitfest, actually?”

“Then she’ll change her mind. But we have to give her a  _ chance.” _

BoJack pouts. “It’ll take forever to clean out the guest room. We’ll have to get the whole house looking nice.”

“Well, she’s not exactly coming  _ now.” _

“We already agreed that we are in  _ no  _ way fit to look after a child.”

“She’s seventeen. She can look after herself well enough.”

Todd rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I mean, Herb’s got a point,” he explains. “I was only a year older than that when I moved in, and I’m a roommate, not a kid you have to look after.”

“Well,  _ yeah,  _ but --” He gestures toward the pile of broken glass near the broken window. “We’d have to clean that glass up, it’d be a safety hazard.”

Todd raises an eyebrow. “It already  _ is  _ a safety hazard.”

Herb stares at BoJack for a moment. His eyes widen. “You’re  _ scared.”  _ It’s not a question.

BoJack rubs the back of his neck nervously. “...So?”

“BJ…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “She’s seventeen. She doesn’t need us to teach her life skills, or model good mental health and healthy relationships, or show her how to interact with the world. We’ve just gotta babysit her, basically, for however long it’s gonna be, get to know her, show her the ropes of LA.” He grins. “What are you so afraid of?”

“The usual,” he deadpans, resting his feet on the table in a show of confidence. “That I’ll ruin everything, either through my own stupidity or through my inaction as something horrific happens and I don’t even find out until it’s too late.” 

“Oh, what are the chances that  _ that’s  _ gonna happen?”

“Well, knowing my life, surprisingly --”

“BJ.” He takes a deep breath. “You are in control of your actions.”

“I know.”

“And you’re not going to  _ accidentally  _ ruin a girl’s life, because that would require you to  _ choose  _ to do something incredibly shitty, which you will  _ not  _ do. Okay?” He grins. “What do you even think’s gonna happen?”

He gestures vaguely. “Drugs?” They both stare at him. “I dunno, drugs have a tendency to  _ happen  _ around here.”

“That  _ might  _ be due to your multiple untreated drug addictions,” says Todd.

BoJack waves a hand dismissively. “They’re not  _ untreated,  _ they  _ are  _ the treatment.” He grins. “Ah, what the hell? Tell her she can come.”

Herb’s eyes light up. “I  _ knew  _ you’d be into it.”

“Did you talk to her on the phone, or just her dads?”

“Her, a little. Mostly her dads.” He grins. “She says she’s really looking forward to it. She’s gonna  _ love  _ the Cali lifestyle.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hollyhock settles into the Cali lifestyle.

The second it’s out of airplane mode, it bursts into life. She’s gotten  _ eight  _ new messages in the family groupchat, each one saying just about the same thing as the other eight -- reminders that she’s loved, and that they all hope she has a great visit, and to text them once she gets off the plane  _ and  _ when she sees BoJack and Herb at the airport  _ and  _ when she’s at their house. She types up a quick message to alert them to her safe arrival, and then steps out, clutching the shoulder strap of her bag.

It takes a moment to find them. BoJack could be pretty easily found with a google search, pictures from his recent work in  _ Secretariat’s  _ Oscar campaign all over the web, but Herb, from what she’s seen, hasn’t appeared in a photo  _ once  _ in the last twenty years, and honestly, he  _ seemed  _ to be avoiding the camera that time. When she catches sight of him next to BoJack, she has to squint to recognise him; he’s lost a lot of weight, and a  _ lot  _ of hair, since his sole photo from the 90s, and half of his face is obscured by a sign that says  _ Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzarelli-McQuack,  _ to go along with BoJack’s one which says  _ Manheim-Manheim-Guerrero-Robinson. _

She frowns.

Herb is standing on BoJack’s right-hand side, so that all together, the signs read,  _ Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonarelli-McQuack Manheim-Manheim-Guerrero-Robinson. _

Also, the second one should be spelled  _ Mannheim,  _ with two N’s.

She’s frowning as she steps up to them, and they can both obviously tell something’s  _ wrong,  _ but it’s too loud to even have a hope of explaining, so she just nods when they ask to confirm her identity and lets them lead her to the car.

“You okay, kiddo?” asks Herb, watching her cautiously through the rear vision mirror as she climbs into the back seat. 

“Mm-hmm,” she lies. She tells herself the sign isn’t a  _ big deal,  _ and it isn’t, really. The fact that they were in the wrong order means  _ nothing,  _ says nothing at all about how much they care for her, probably just means they can’t tell left from right, which is stupid but somehow endearing. And there’s no  _ way  _ Herb could be expected to know which  _ Mannheim  _ is spelt with two N’s and which is spelt with only one, having only heard about her over the phone.

But, she can’t deny that it’s a wake-up call to the fact that these people don’t even  _ know  _ her, and she doesn’t even know them, and now she’s  _ moving in  _ with them for an unspecified period of time, and maybe this is a little too fast.

She tries to keep her mind off that. “You look different,” she says to Herb.

“Different to what?” asks Herb.

“The one photo of you I could find online,” she explains. “It was from a photoshoot after the finale of  _ Horsin’ Around.  _ It’s the page image for your Wikipedia page. Even with a reverse image search I couldn’t find anything else.”

“...Oh.”

“It would be weird if he  _ didn’t  _ look different,” says BoJack. “That was, like, thirty years ago.”

“Also, I went through chemotherapy.”

“Yeah, I saw in your Wikipedia page.” She frowns. “Have, have you done  _ anything  _ publicly since  _ Horsin’ Around?” _

“Oh, I’ve had a few writing gigs,” Herb assures her. “You’ll find my name in the credits. I don’t like to make a big spectacle of myself. Are you hungry?”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“You were on a five hour flight, you must be hungry. Do you want us to go to a drive-thru, or something?”

“...I don’t know.” She rubs the back of her neck nervously. She  _ is  _ hungry, yes, but she doesn’t have a  _ clue  _ what she wants to eat. She’s probably not  _ so  _ hungry it can’t wait until they get home, but she doesn’t even know what the options  _ are  _ at home. She doesn’t know what the options are before then, either. What fast food restaurants are between the airport and BoJack’s house? 

“I’ll go the drive-thru,” says BoJack casually. 

Hollyhock nods silently.

So, they go to the nearest fast food place and an acne-ridden teen takes their order. When they roll up to the pay window, Herb expectantly holds out his hand to BoJack. “Your card?”

BoJack rolls his eyes. “You pay.”

“BJ.” He turns to him, smirking. “Keep in mind, you still owe me that sixty bucks from the bet.”

“I  _ do  _ not!”

Hollyhock’s eyes widen. “You guys bet  _ sixty bucks?”  _

“No, don’t be silly,” explains Herb. “We bet thirty bucks. Then BJ won, so I paid up, but now he’s  _ un-won,  _ so he owes me my defeat money  _ and  _ money from the actual bet.”

BoJack crosses his arms. “Isn’t there, like, a statute of limitations on bets?”

“There isn’t, so  _ pay up.” _

Becoming increasingly self-conscious of the cashier waiting on them, Hollyhock says, “Don’t you two have a shared bank account?”

Herb turns very red. As he takes out his card to pay, he says to BoJack, “We are  _ not  _ done talking about this.” 

* * *

The argument about the bet continues for the entire drive home. Hollyhock is able to gleam together the context based on the bits and pieces she hears; at some point around nineteen years ago, a friend of theirs was pregnant, and they bet money on the sex of the baby. The baby, who is now an adult in college, recently came out as trans, and now BoJack and Herb are arguing over how that affects their bet. 

“So, who  _ is  _ this kid, anyway?” asks Hollyhock. She looks at BoJack’s laptop screen, which is displaying a selfie of a yellowish horse with platinum blonde hair and a white diamond on his forehead, with the caption  _ out here living my best life! (he/him). _

“Family friend,” answers Herb.

Her eyes light up. “You have family friends?” When they both nod, slightly apprehensive, she says, “So you have  _ family?” _

“Not exactly, but we’re close enough to  _ nearly  _ be family.” He grins. “I’ll take us all down to visit them in a few weeks, how’s that sound?”

Hollyhock almost says that it sounds  _ awful,  _ visiting someone she’s never met just for the sake of meeting them, but then, she remembers where she is. “Yeah, that sounds cool.” She frowns. “Uh, who’s the guy in the hoodie?”

BoJack grimaces, turning toward Todd who is sleeping on the couch. “He’s our, uh, roommate.”

“Parasite,” amends Herb. “He pays no rent, and we let him stay here because he has nowhere else to go, and he’s shown no intentions of getting a job so he can prepare to leave.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “Well, I mean, it’s normal for young adults to spend a few months --”

“He’s twenty-six,” explains BoJack. “He’s been here for eight years. We didn’t even know him before he moved in.”

“...Oh.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of a mess.”

“Aren’t we all?” chuckles Herb.

Hollyhock, hesitantly, sits down at the kitchen table. “So…” She clears her throat, looking at Herb. “Your Wikipedia page is, uh, pretty blank.”

What she thinks is a perfectly safe conversation starter quickly proves loaded as BoJack throws up his hands in frustration and storms out. Herb chuckles nervously. “He’s in an edit war over my Wikipedia page,” he explains. “He keeps adding facts about me and then throwing a tantrum when the moderators say he needs a citation.” 

“A  _ citation?!”  _ echoes BoJack incredulously. “A  _ citation?!  _ I’m your  _ husband!” _

“I keep telling you, if you just livetweeted everything that happens in my life you could use that as the source!” He sighs. “So, uhh, if we all know about each other, from BJ’s Wikipedia page and from your dads, I guess I’d better say some stuff about myself. My name’s Herb.” He chuckles nervously. “I’m  _ famously  _ gay, as you probably already know. I’m also a pretty decent writer, I like to think, and, umm -- I nearly died of cancer a few years ago.” He rubs the back of his neck uneasily. “That’s, uh, that’s about it.”

Hollyhock raises an eyebrow. “What about your backstory?”

“My -- backstory?” He blinks. “Oh, uh… I was born in 1961. In March. I was orphaned really young, so I got shuffled around foster homes for a few years, and then I was adopted by seahorses. I had two sisters, one older, one younger. The older one’s a goldfish, the younger one’s a sea urchin. Any questions?”

Hollyhock timidly raises her hand like a school child. “Do seahorses read fpreg?”

Herb blinks. “What?”

“Fpreg,” she explains, like she’s talking to a very young child. “You know, the opposite of mpreg?”

“...What is  _ mpreg?” _

Hollyhock bursts into laughter. 

“...What?” Herb repeats. “What is it? Am I missing something here?”

Hollyhock slams her fist against the table in her laughter while Herb continues to be confused. “What?” he repeats. “Is, is this a joke I’m not in on? What’s the --”

“You don’t wanna know,” she manages to get out through her laughter. She pauses. “Woah, I’m tired from the flight. You guys have coffee?”

BoJack scoffs. “You do realise caffeine is a  _ drug,  _ right?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Uh, technically, I guess, but --”

“It’s just as addictive as any other drug. Don’t take it.”

She tilts her head at him. “Doesn’t your Wikipedia page have an entire section titled ‘drug-related offences’?”

“And  _ none  _ of them were caffeine.”

“That’s because caffeine isn’t illegal.”

“No, it’s because I don’t  _ do  _ caffeine.” 

* * *

The words  _ two weeks later  _ are proudly displayed on the cover of the book that Hollyhock reads, coincidentally, after two weeks of staying with Herb and BoJack. She frowns. “Hey, BoJack?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I meet some other relatives?”

“No,” he answers bluntly. “Your dad’s dead.”

“...Oh.” She frowns. “How did he die?”

“From injuries he sustained in a duel.”

“From  _ what?” _

“A duel,” he repeats. “He got into a duel with some guy over his book, tripped over a tree root, hit his head, and died.”

“Yeesh.”

“Yeah, he was a piece of shit.”

“What about  _ your  _ relatives?” She sits up straight. “Can I meet them?”

“My mom’s senile. She’s also a huge bitch.” He pauses. “That’s about it.”

“Do you have  _ any  _ not-shitty family members?”

He glares. “Herb isn’t shitty.”

“I know!” She frowns. “Although,  _ why  _ hasn’t Herb done anything public since  _ Horsin’ Around?” _

“He’s camera shy,” explains BoJack.   
“I am not,” says Herb indignantly. 

“He  _ is,”  _ teases BoJack. “He doesn’t even let me post selfies if he’s in the background.”

Herb crosses his arms. “Shut up.”

“It’s true! They almost had to hold him down to get photos for the  _ Horsin’ Around  _ finale.”

Hollyhock frowns. “That sounds … problematic.” She had been willing to chalk up the lack of photos including Herb on any of BoJack’s social pages as perhaps a classic example of old people being incapable of doing specific,  _ easy  _ tasks involving technology. The lack of  _ any  _ photo evidence that Herb didn’t drop dead in 1997 is increasingly becoming mysterious. “Are you insecure, or something, or… ?”

BoJack smirks. “He’s probably insecure about his small wrists.” To demonstrate, he wraps his hand around Herb’s wrist. “They’re disproportionate.”

“They’re not,” snaps Herb.

“Aww, it’s okay, baby,” says BoJack in a gentle tone, ruffling what’s left of his hair. “Don’t be insecure, I’m gonna smash your pussy.”

_ “I’m  _ gonna smash  _ your  _ pussy.”

Hollyhock covers her face with her hands. “Can you  _ please  _ not?”

Herb turns very red. “Oh shit, I forgot we had a guest.” He mock glares. “BJ! Must you enlighten our  _ guest  _ on our pussy-smashing adventures?”

_ “Guys!”  _ hisses Hollyhock.

“Okay, okay, we’ll stop now.” 

“Yeesh, if  _ this  _ is your way to get me to stop asking about the photo thing, then I am  _ sure  _ to ask other people.” 

“Yeah, everyone else tried that one, too,” deadpans Herb. “That’s why nobody knows.”

* * *

She tries to sneak in a few more hours of sleep, but even with a pillow strategically positioned over her ears, she can still  _ hear  _ them, and their completely inane debate. She could ignore it if it was just another incoherent pussy-smashing argument, but she hears mentions of  _ owing,  _ specifically owing thirty bucks from  _ that bet,  _ and part of her actually  _ wants  _ to see how they resolve that, in the same way that she might watch the world’s most boring soap opera out of some primal desire to see  _ how  _ Cathy got pregnant.

So, she gets out of bed, very reluctantly. Her first instinct upon going downstairs is to find the coffee machine, but there  _ isn’t  _ one, so she resigns herself to the fact that she’ll have to talk Herb into taking her to Starbucks. She really does need to get around to buying some instant coffee. “What are you two talking about?”

“Harper,” answers BoJack.

“Who’s Harper?”

“The kid whose gender we bet on nineteen years ago,” explains Herb.

“I don’t know  _ why  _ we’re even still talking about this,” says BoJack. “He  _ just  _ posted that using he/him pronouns doesn’t make him a guy.”

“You  _ said  _ he was a girl.” He crosses his arms. “I want my money back.”

“Baby, it was  _ nineteen years ago.”  _ He groans. “Do you, do you have any  _ idea  _ how long ago that was? This was before Harper was  _ born.  _ Harper is now an  _ adult.  _ In  _ college.” _

“Exactly,” says Herb. “And you’ve owed me thirty bucks for that  _ entire  _ time.”

“Herb, if a baby was born on the day we made that bet and he was named Jared, he would be  _ nineteen  _ now. And he  _ still  _ wouldn’t have learned to  _ fucking  _ read, a quality I  _ wish  _ I had so I wouldn’t have to see this conversation.”

“This conversation is verbal!”

Hollyhock raises an eyebrow. “Does this  _ really  _ matter? I mean, you two have a shared bank account.”

“Well,  _ yeah,  _ but -- it’s the principle of the thing. Just because BJ’s my husband doesn’t mean he can take all my money.”

“Does too,” snarks BoJack, very obviously taking a ten-dollar note from the kitchen table. 

“Oi! Put that back.”

“Make me,” BoJack dares him.

Hollyhock groans. “Can we go to Starbucks?” She knows she shouldn’t -- her dads only gave her so much money for the trip and she’s quickly burning through it -- but she can’t go to the store to get some money-saving instant coffee until she’s  _ had a coffee,  _ which is easily the most problematic part of her newfound coffee addiction. It started when she was cramming for her final exams and now she can’t wake up without it. 

“I don’t  _ want  _ to go to Starbucks,” whines Herb. 

“But I  _ need  _ coffee,” she whines back.

BoJack looks down at them, scowling. “You  _ do  _ realise caffeine is a  _ drug,  _ right?” He rolls his eyes at them. “You’re  _ basically  _ shooting cocaine.”

“Well, I’d rather  _ basically  _ shoot cocaine than  _ actually  _ shoot cocaine, which you’ve gotten arrested for twice.” She grins. “I’m not exactly gonna overdose on coffee.”

“She’s got a point there,” says Herb, ruffling her hair. After a pause, he adds, “She might have a heart attack, though, with the way she guzzles it down. Maybe try some hot chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate is  _ totally  _ different.” She groans. “I  _ need  _ coffee. I’m getting a headache from not having any.”

“That means you’re  _ addicted,”  _ says BoJack.

“BJ, you’re literally already tipsy,” says Herb.

BoJack puts down his bottle of vodka. “I am not.” He turns to Hollyhock. “You know, if you just power through the headaches, you won’t need coffee anymore.”

She frowns. “That seems like a lot of work.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It does.” He sighs. “Herb, take her to Starbucks.” 

Herb raises an eyebrow. “In her pyjamas?”

Hollyhock groans. “We’ll go through the drive-thru! I don’t  _ need  _ to get dressed.”

Herb narrows his eyes. “Do your dads let you go out in your pyjamas?” 

“...Well,  _ no,  _ but … I’d have to get  _ dressed.  _ It’d be a whole thing.”

“You wear the same outfit every day anyway,” says BoJack.

“So do you!”

“I was raised by sitcoms. What’s your excuse?”

“You were  _ raised  _ by a sitcom that started in your 20s?”

“Yes.” 

Herb frowns. “Hey, babe, lose it with the self-deprecation.”

BoJack, very intelligently, responds with, “Shut up before I smash your pussy.”

_ “I’ll  _ smash  _ your  _ pussy.”

“No,  _ I’ll  _ smash --”

Hollyhock groans loudly.  _ “Guys!” _

BoJack and Herb both go silent.

“Is -- is  _ this  _ what I came to California for?!” she chokes. “A pair of  _ adult children  _ who argue over bets from nearly two decades ago and refuse to accept that they both have dicks?”

“Well,” says BoJack defensively. “We  _ do  _ know we have dicks, it’s just --”

Hollyhock  _ huffs,  _ blowing her hair out of her face as she does so, and crosses her arms. “I want to meet some other relatives.” 

BoJack glares. “Hey--”

Herb quickly steps between them to defuse the tension. “We can take you to see a family friend in a few weeks,” he suggests. “But, you  _ literally  _ don’t have any other relatives.”

“BoJack’s parents aren’t  _ both  _ dead, are they?” she says, scowling.

“His dad is. You’re not even  _ related _ to his mom. You  _ do  _ get the hole half-sibling thing, right?”

BoJack clears his throat. “You can meet my mom.”

Herb turns sharply.  _ “What?!” _

“You can meet my mom,” says BoJack again, quietly. “She’s senile. Dementia or something. We can go visit her in the nursing home.”

“That’s  _ insane,”  _ says Herb.

Hollyhock looks up. “That sounds nice.”

“No, no, it really doesn’t. Are you  _ kidding  _ me, BJ?!” He turns to Hollyhock. “BJ’s mom gave him a  _ lot  _ of trauma. It  _ really  _ doesn’t sound like a good idea for them to talk.”

“...But, she’s senile, right?” says Hollyhock hopefully. “So, she can’t hurt him anymore.”

“Exactly!” exclaims BoJack.

“No!  _ Not  _ exactly!” protests Herb. “This is  _ ridiculous. Why  _ would you want us to all go down and visit an  _ abuser,  _ a  _ senile  _ abuser, just to  _ meet  _ her? This is  _ insane.” _

Hollyhock hesitates. “But if BoJack’s okay with it…”

“I am,” says BoJack.

“Then really I don’t see how--”

Herb throws up his hands in frustration. “Todd! Can you  _ please  _ come stop me from being outvoted!” The room is silent. He frowns. “Where’s Todd?”

“Reverse Super Bowl,” answers BoJack.

Hollyhock blinks. “What?”

_ “Still?”  _ questions Herb.

“Yeah, it’s a long story.” He clears his throat. “So, are we gonna go down to see my mom?”

Herb takes a deep breath. “I’m outvoted, aren’t I?”

“Yep.”

“And if I refuse to come, on the grounds that this is a  _ horrible  _ idea, then you guys are just gonna go without me, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“And it will be  _ infinitely  _ worse if I’m not there to help, won’t it.”

“Yep.”

He sighs. “Let me go grab my keys.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BoJack struggles to cope with Beatrice living with him, but refuses to let Herb or Hollyhock take her to another nursing home.

Walnut Springs is a sterile, utterly  _ boring  _ home. BoJack swears to God he’s not keeping track of how long he has to spend there, but he thinks it’s about the seventeen minute mark where he starts wondering if he could attempt suicide as an excuse to leave. The answer he finally comes up with is that it would provide an  _ excellent  _ excuse to leave, as well as showing his pathetic excuse for a mother  _ exactly  _ how  _ great  _ her parenting was, but it would also traumatise Herb and Hollyhock, which is a bit of a downside.

BoJack internally debates whether it would be worth traumatizing Herb while Hollyhock talks to Beatrice like she’s a  _ goddamn toddler,  _ assuring her that she’d be a  _ great mother  _ as though BoJack isn’t even in the room. Herb places a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, we’ll be out of here in no time.”

“No, we won’t,” says BoJack grimly. 

“If you want, we can --”

“She doesn’t even  _ recognise  _ me.” He buries his face in his hands. “God.”

Herb raises an eyebrow. “...Do you  _ want  _ her to recognise you?”

“No! Of course not. That would be  _ insane.”  _ He pauses. “...Yeah. I do.”

Herb frowns.  _ “Why?” _

BoJack remains silent.

Herb bites his lip nervously, and guesses, “You want her to … apologise?”

“Ugh, not even that.” He crosses his arms, turning away from Herb. “It’s so pathetic. I don’t even want her to own up to the years of trauma and abuse. I just want her to  _ see  _ me.” He sighs. “All I’ve  _ ever  _ wanted from her, is for her to look at me from across the room and see  _ me,  _ as a  _ person,  _ and now she’s never going to.”

“...I mean,” says Herb carefully. “You, you already  _ knew  _ that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I knew it. But -- there are some things that you always  _ know  _ and never  _ accept.” _

“Well, you’d better accept it.”

His eyes widen.  _ “Or  _ I could go grab my  _ Horsin’ Around  _ clothes so she’ll recognise me.”

Herb steps back. “BJ, I really don’t think --”

He grabs his keys. “Back in fifteen.” 

* * *

He returns in fifteen minutes exactly with his stomach sticking out of a poorly-fitting  _ Horsin’ Around  _ sweater. Beatrice recognises him, somewhat, and the resulting confusion and violence gets her  _ kicked out  _ of the nursing home.

Herb takes a deep breath. “Okay, this is -- this is fine. We’ll just take her to another nursing home.”

“We’ll take her home,” says BoJack. 

Herb’s eyes widen. “What?”

“We’ll take her home,” repeats BoJack. “You know, back to  _ my  _ house. So Hollyhock can get to know her more.”

Hollyhock rubs the back of her neck nervously. “Uh, to be honest, I think I’ve gotten to know her enough --”

_ “Not debatable!”  _ snaps BoJack through gritted teeth. “We’re taking her home.”

Herb curses under his breath. BoJack pretends not to hear.

* * *

As everyone else easily predicted, it takes a total of  _ ten minutes  _ for BoJack’s plan to start going downhill, and within three days it’s completely off the rails in just about every possible way. He can’t be in a room with her for a  _ minute  _ without  _ something  _ pissing him off. Herb’s patience lasts longer than anybody else’s, but by the end of the first week it’s getting hard for him to remain sympathetic. 

This time, it’s because Beatrice calls him Henrietta. 

“Who the  _ hell  _ is Henrietta?!” he snaps at her. She doesn’t seem phased, so he takes a step into her personal space, throws up his hands in frustration.  _ “Who  _ is Henrietta?!” he  _ demands,  _ looking like he’s about a half a second away from shaking her shoulders.

“She’s my mom,” says Hollyhock, not looking up from the book she’s reading. “Beatrice is just  _ confused.  _ It’s not her fault.”

“She thinks  _ I’m  _ your mom?!” protests BoJack, audibly offended. “Okay, first of all, I am  _ clearly  _ a man.”

“She has  _ dementia.” _

“I mean, if it was Herb, I could get it, but  _ me?” _

Herb shoots him an offended look. “Hey!”

“I am  _ obviously  _ not Henrietta. Why won’t she  _ get  _ it?!”

“It’s not a big deal,” says Hollyhock irritably. “She doesn’t know  _ anyone’s  _ names.”

“It  _ is  _ a big deal!” protests BoJack, tearing out chunks of his mane. “You -- you don’t  _ get  _ it.” His breathing is speeding up rapidly by this point. “My  _ whole  _ life, my mother has  _ never  _ seen me in a way that matters. She has never  _ once  _ thought about me except when a thought crossed her mind about how utterly  _ irredeemable  _ I was. I was  _ irredeemable  _ by the age of  _ eight,  _ and my mother never  _ saw  _ me, never came home with a random cheap gift because she saw it in the shop and thought of me. And my  _ entire  _ life, that has been just  _ weighing  _ on me, and -- and now it’s like she’s just  _ rubbing it in.” _

“She has  _ dementia,”  _ repeats Hollyhock incredulously.

“You don’t understand! She --”

“BJ,” says Herb, in a tone that sends ice straight into BoJack’s bones. He takes a deep breath. “If having your mother here is so triggering that it sends you into a spiral of taking what a  _ senile old lady  _ says personally, maybe it’s better for her to leave.”

It’s immediately clear from the way BoJack’s ears shoot upward that no part of him wants his mother to leave, or at least no  _ loud  _ part of him. The sensible parts of him are often too quiet to be involved in situations such as this. “No,” he snaps, firmly, only just managing to keep the edge of panic out of his voice.

Herb raises an eyebrow. “No?”

_ “No,”  _ says BoJack, more darkly. He sounds like he’s being forced to make her stay at gunpoint.

Herb’s features soften. “BJ--”

“I can handle this,” BoJack insists, in a shaky but loud voice. “Okay? This is  _ completely  _ within the realm of things that  _ I can cope with.”  _ He takes a deep breath. “Oh, screw this. I’m going out.”

He turns to leave. Herb takes a step after him. “Going out  _ where?”  _

“To the pub,” he answers blankly, before opening the front door and storming out.

There’s a long silence in which Hollyhock and Herb make apologetic eye contact. “I’m sorry,” begins Herb. He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “He’s not normally this bad.”

Hollyhock raises an eyebrow at him. “But, he normally  _ is  _ bad?”

Herb twitches. “Hollyhock, he’s -- BJ’s my  _ husband.”  _ He gulps. “I  _ love  _ him, okay? I  _ love  _ him. And he might have his flaws, but he’s also  _ incredibly  _ loyal once you earn his trust, and he  _ loves  _ me,  _ so much,  _ that it makes up for everything else. I’d trust him to the end of the earth.”

Hollyhock can’t make eye contact with him. She instead looks at her shoes, and the expression on her face is all too recognizable as one of  _ disillusionment.  _ “...You didn’t answer the question.”

Herb remains silent.

She sighs. “So, uh, once BoJack gets back -- Beatrice seems to want a baby, or something. I reckon we should get her a doll.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” He takes a deep breath. “He’ll be back in a few hours.”

The only response Hollyhock can manage is, “I know.”

* * *

“So  _ then,”  _ he explains, while Herb holds the phone just close enough to his ear that he’s  _ ostensibly  _ listening even though this story got boring starting from the mention of a  _ tabletop games club.  _ “Penny gets executed, right? But it turns out she was  _ actually  _ a villager the whole time. So now,  _ everyone’s  _ pointing the finger at  _ me,  _ since I was the one to accuse her.”

Herb, without being fully aware of who’s being accused of what, lazily replies with, “Well, why did you accuse her?”

“I was sitting  _ right  _ next to her, and I  _ heard  _ her moving when the werewolves were awake. Can you blame me?” He groans. “Turns out she was just fidgeting loudly. Anyway, so, she got executed, and next round I got spellcasted, so when everyone was accusing me I couldn’t defend myself. And  _ then,  _ some of the people talking about why I was a werewolf started misgendering me, so --”

“Wait.” His eyes widen. “You’re in a tabletop games club with people who misgender you?”

“Oh, it’s not -- it’s not on purpose. I’m not really  _ out  _ yet, so normally when people don’t know, I just correct them. But this time I couldn’t, because the spellcaster --”

“Is this story going anywhere?”

“Yes, but it’ll take a long time to get there.” He pauses. “Also, I  _ should  _ warn you, the punchline is underwhelming at best.”

“Yeah, uh, the thing is -- I  _ kind  _ of have to go.” He laughs apologetically. “BJ’s sort of, uh --”

“Being BoJack?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back.” He hangs up. Herb stares at the phone. 

After a pause, he nervously clears his throat. “Everything okay out there?”

There’s a long silence. “Yeah,” calls back BoJack in a strained voice.

Herb narrows his eyes. “Are you lying?”

BoJack sighs so loudly and so dramatically Herb can hear it from nearly the other side of the house. “Babe, you  _ know  _ I couldn’t lie to you.”

“I do  _ not  _ know that.”

“Well, how about you  _ trust  _ me a little more? I  _ never  _ lie to you.”

“You’ve lied to me  _ many  _ times, as recently as this morning.”

There’s a short pause. “Name  _ one  _ example of me lying to you.”

* * *

Herb quickly typed the words  _ earlier that morning  _ into his word document before he went out to the kitchen to check on BoJack, Todd, and Hollyhock. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

“Yes,” said BoJack.

“No,” said Hollyhock.

Herb narrowed his eyes. “What did you eat for breakfast?”

BoJack hesitated. “Cereal.”

Hollyhock smacked herself in the forehead. “The  _ ‘cereal’ _ was a concerningly large amount of miscellaneous pills, and the  _ ‘milk’ _ was alcohol.”

BoJack rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “...That’s a meal.”

* * *

BoJack clears his throat. “That proves  _ nothing.” _

“Okay, that’s it. I’m coming out.”

“We already  _ know  _ you’re gay.”

_ “Not  _ what I meant.” Sighing, he stands up from the couch and walks out to the kitchen, where he discovers ketchup stains everywhere. “...Oh my God.”

“I can explain!” says Todd. 

Herb gives him an expectant look. 

“I didn’t say I  _ would  _ explain,” says Todd. “just that I  _ can.”  _

Herb pinches the bridge of his nose. “If this turns out to be some  _ bizarre  _ scheme to get Beatrice killed --”

“It’s  _ not!”  _ says BoJack, crossing his arms.

“That’s exactly what it is,” says Todd. 

“Jesus Christ.” He throws up his hands in frustration. “You know, BJ, I thought I had made it  _ perfectly goddamn clear  _ that if you don’t want Beatrice here,  _ she can leave.  _ It’s not like anybody  _ else  _ wants her here.”

BoJack crosses his arms. “She’s my  _ mom.  _ I can’t just kick her out.”

“Quit the bullshit, BJ, I know that you have never  _ once  _ given a shit about kicking your mom out. You tried to kick her out of your dad’s funeral.”

“I was right to, and I would have succeeded if the other guests hadn’t been such dicks about it.” He groans. “You don’t  _ get  _ it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

BoJack remains silent.

“Go on, then,” Herb positively  _ dares  _ him. “I would  _ love  _ to know why there’s a senile old lady living in my house stressing my husband out, okay? I would  _ love  _ to have  _ some  _ sort of explanation for that. So how about instead of talking to me like I’m an  _ idiot,  _ like there’s no way I could  _ ever  _ understand your  _ complicated  _ reason, you just  _ talk  _ to me, like a normal person?”

BoJack gulps, but doesn’t answer.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Get off your goddamn high horse.”

* * *

She hesitantly glances over his shoulder at the laptop screen. A Facebook post displays a young deer girl holding a peace sign and smiling at the camera, with the caption,  _ and then everyone in the tabletop games club was really supportive of him (she/her).  _ There’s probably context, but Hollyhock can’t even  _ begin  _ to imagine what it would be, so she doesn’t comment on it. “...Hey, Herb?”

Herb looks up. After glancing at her face, he closes the laptop screen. “What’s up?”

Hollyhock hesitates. “...Does BoJack want me here?”

“What? Of --” He stutters. “Of  _ course  _ he does. He just doesn’t want his mom here.”

She tilts her head at him, frowning, “Then why is his mom here?”

“That’s … a good question.” He sighs. “BJ’s … stubborn. He doesn’t want us to think he’s not  _ tough  _ enough to deal with his mom. But I promise, he  _ does  _ love you.”

Hollyhock scoffs. “He doesn’t even  _ know  _ you.”

“Neither do I.” He grins, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “But, I think you’re pretty neat.”

“Be honest. Did BoJack  _ want  _ to let me come over, or did you have to talk him into it?”

Herb rubs the back of his neck nervously. “...He needed a little persuasion.”

“So, he didn’t want to.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that! He just -- got anxious. Needed a little boost to trust himself.” It takes him a moment for him to realise just how terribly he managed to fail at reassuring her. “...Maybe I should have focused more on giving him a little boost so he could be a trustworthy person.”

“I don’t regret coming here,” she says, after a pause. “But I mean -- if I’d  _ known  _ BoJack, before I decided…”

Herb bites his lip. “Would you have come?”

She hesitates. “...My dads wouldn’t have let me,” she answers evasively.

“I  _ really  _ wanted you to come.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t even  _ know  _ me.”

“I knew enough.” He chuckles nervously. “I knew you were adopted, I knew you wanted to meet your biological family. That was enough to make me feel sorry for you, but maybe I’m biased.” 

“Oh.” She opens her mouth, then closes it, frowning. It takes her a moment of hesitation to dare open it again. “...Did you ever … ?”

“Get to meet my biological family?” She nods. “Uh, no. I was an only child -- blood-wise, that is -- and by the time I could use Internet to find people on social media, mostly everyone had died of natural causes. I  _ did  _ find one cousin who lived in Australia. I messaged her to say I was a long-lost relative and wanted to get in touch, but she said she wasn’t interested, because she doesn’t know me.”

She grimaces. “Yeesh.”

“Eh, she seemed pretty boring on her Facebook. All she did was make fun of people for thinking a hundred degrees was hot and refer to McDonald’s as  _ Macca’s.”  _ He shudders. “That is  _ such  _ a weird nickname.”

“It  _ is  _ weird.”

“Yeah, everything’s totally backward down there.”

“Don’t you mean upside-down?”

“That too.” He grins. “Anyway -- don’t mind BJ. Soon, he’ll let me kick Bea out, and  _ then  _ he won’t be so stressed out all the time.”

* * *

A black title card appears briefly on the television screen before displaying the words  _ A Few Days Later.  _ Nobody points out that despite being meaningless without the context of what the time skip is in reference to, it  _ is  _ an interesting coincidence that they happen to see this a few days after Herb talked to Hollyhock. Nobody notices the TV at all; they’re all busy trying to prevent a fight from breaking out.

“Quit  _ babying  _ her,” says BoJack. “She  _ literally  _ ruined my life.”

“Yeah, I get that!” snaps Hollyhock. “But she has  _ dementia.  _ Is it really that bad to coo over her fake baby a little?”

“Yes, it  _ is  _ that bad.” He rolls his eyes. “Why are you so  _ obsessed  _ with her? She’s not even  _ your  _ mom.”

_ “I’m  _ obsessed?!  _ You’re  _ the one who won’t even let us send her to another nursing home.” She crosses her arms irritably. “Besides, it’s -- I don’t know, she looks familiar.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “She looks familiar?”

“Yeah, I -- I feel like I’ve seen her before? Or someone who looks like her. I don’t know.”

“You’re insane.” 

Herb doesn’t look up from the book he’s reading. “That’s gaslighting, BJ.”

“Oh,  _ shut up.”  _ He throws up his hands in frustration. “You think you’re  _ so  _ much better than me, because you’re  _ too good  _ to care about my mom, okay? Get off your  _ goddamn  _ high horse.” 

Herb twitches. He very slowly, very  _ carefully  _ folds over a page to mark his place in the book, breathing slowly and deeply. Then, he stands up. “Okay, what the  _ hell  _ is this?”

BoJack flinches. “What?”

_ “I  _ don’t want your mom here.  _ You  _ don’t want your mom here. Even  _ Hollyhock  _ doesn’t really want your mom here.” Hollyhock nods slightly to confirm that this is true. “So, why don’t you tell us  _ why  _ your mom is here?”

BoJack spends several moments just  _ standing  _ there, unable to think of what to say. He feels Hollyhock, Herb, and his own mother staring at him. His shoulders slump forward anxiously as his breathing grows more and more frantic. Finally, his voice breaks when he snaps back, “Because I  _ need  _ her to love me!”

Herb’s features soften. “BJ--”

“This is my last chance,” he insists. “She’s gonna  _ die  _ soon. And, she’s  _ totally  _ out of it. If I can, if I can  _ trick  _ her into seeing me as a person for a moment, or saying she loves me without knowing I’m  _ me,  _ then --”

“Then that won’t change anything,” says Herb, in a reassuring but careful tone. “There’s nothing she could say  _ now  _ that would make up for how she treated you.” 

The news, exceedingly obvious to everyone else, hits BoJack like a tonne of bricks. If it weren’t for the three people staring at him he’d probably break down crying on the spot. Instead, he takes several deep breaths, and snatches the toy baby from Beatrice’s hands. “Then  _ why  _ are we coddling her shitty parenting?”

“Because it would be cruel not to,” says Hollyhock.

BoJack shrugs. “She was cruel to me.” Then, without any hesitation, he throws the baby out the window. Beatrice leaps out of her chair to go look for it. BoJack doesn’t even turn his head in her direction.

There’s a long silence.

Herb hesitates. “So … can we take her to a nursing home now?” 

“Yeah,” says BoJack blankly. “Yeah, let’s get rid of her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a while! sorry! it was a hard chapter and school has been killing me. i've only been there for a week, there's no major projects due for nearly two months, and already i'm pulling eight-hour days to attend my friend's tabletop games club. (yes the thing with harper is based on a true story lmao)
> 
> next chapter: new mexico babey!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herb and BoJack take Hollyhock with them on their trip to New Mexico.

It’s a long drive, and Hollyhock accidentally ends up spending most of it learning new fun ways to piss off any English major. The best way, as demonstrated by BoJack, is to refer to someone as ‘a he/him’ and respond to Herb’s attempt at correction with, “What do you  _ mean,  _ it’s not a noun? How can a  _ pronoun  _ not be a noun?”

The resulting shock nearly causes Herb to crash the car, and he spends several seconds frowning silently before he finally throws up his hands in frustration and says, “I  _ guess.” _

BoJack grins. “Misusing pronouns, one; English majors, zero.”

Herb manages to regain enough of his pride to quip back, “Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s one-all.” He grins. “If I’m being generous.”

BoJack stares at him in confusion briefly, then groans. “I thought we agreed to never mention that again.”

“Never mention  _ what  _ again?” asks Hollyhock.

BoJack takes a deep breath. “Once, before I had educated myself, I said they/them pronouns were bullshit.”

“Except he didn’t specify that he meant  _ singular  _ they,” explains Herb. “So, obviously, I made fun of him for several weeks.”

BoJack’s voice rises several pitches in a mockery of Herb’s.  _ “‘Oh, then how do you refer to groups of people?’” _

Herb, likewise, drops his voice in an imitation of BoJack’s.  _ “‘You know that’s not what I meant--’” _

_ “‘Aww, babe, it’s okay, if you think those are ‘bullshit pronouns’ then we won’t use them -- I mean, we won’t use the pronouns in question.’”  _ He groans. “That was  _ so  _ stupid.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who started it.”

“Thank  _ God  _ I learned better. I’m never arguing with an English major again.”

BoJack, in fact,  _ does  _ argue with an English major again, the very same English major, multiple times during that same road trip. They squabble over Shakespeare, the word ‘egregious’, the Oxford comma, the colour blue, and then Shakespeare again, in that order, before they stop at a hotel for the night to continue the road trip in the morning. 

The following day has a shorter drive, in which the time is passed almost exclusively through annoying songs. Mostly, they screech out the lyrics to whatever song was popular in the seventies, while Hollyhock begs them to stop; occasionally they take a break from assaulting her ears to sing some generic car ride song. BoJack is halfway through the first verse of  _ Kyle and the Kids  _ when he groans and says, “No, it doesn’t work anymore. They’re not kids.”

“What the  _ hell  _ is that song?” asks Hollyhock.

“Oh, we made up some dumb song a few years back about Charlotte’s family. But, it doesn’t work anymore. The kids grew up.”

Herb, of course, spent too much time doing improv in high school drama class and never learned to take down an offer. He clears his throat and begins,  _ “Kyle and the adults.” _

“Oh, God, we are  _ not  _ making that a --”

_ “Kyle’s the dad and Charlotte’s married to him!  _

_ And they’ve got some adult kids _

_ “There’s Penny _

_ She’s going to Oberlin _

_ But she’s on a break right now _

_ She’s got a brother - her brother’s name is Trip! _

_ Trip’s in junior year, _

_ They’re the perfect family! _

_ “Kyle and the adults!  _

_ They love their kids and there’s nothing you can do! _

_ Kyle and the adults! _

_ Nothing’s gonna be alright _

_ Be alright _

_ Oh no!” _

Hollyhock’s eyes widen. “What the  _ hell  _ was that?”

Herb chuckles nervously. “It, uh -- it made sense when we first wrote the song.”

“And how high were you when you first wrote the song?”

“Well, neither of us have  _ any  _ memory of it, but when we came to, there was very detailed sheet music that allowed us to recreate it. Which is weird, because neither of us know sheet music.”

“Ugh.” She rests her head against the window, then frowns. “Wait.”

“What?” asks BoJack.

“If the new version of the song is  _ Kyle and the Adults --  _ plural -- and Trip’s in junior year in 2017, which is the current year --” She removes her head from the window, still frowning. “Does that mean Charlotte has a third kid that isn’t in the song?”

* * *

“...Yes,” says BoJack, quite some time later, in reference to an entirely separate question that was asked in the context of a completely different conversation. 

Hollyhock is about to continue the conversation, but by now they’re in Charlotte’s driveway, and once the front door opens, she’s too shocked to say anything at all.

It starts with the regular small talk that she just has to ignore, because they’re all three times her age and there’s no way for her to slot herself into the conversation without being self-conscious about the age gap. Having eight dads, she’s used to it. Eventually, the  _ old  _ people seem to remember that there are cool, young people standing around blankly, and Herb is the first one to directly acknowledge them. “Well, this is Hollyhock!” He pulls her forward by the arm,  _ presenting  _ her to the family. “She’s a long-lost half-sister of BJ’s, and she’s been  _ dying  _ to meet his pseudo-family. Isn’t that right?” Hollyhock nods awkwardly. Charlotte comes to the rescue.

“It’s great to meet you!” She gestures toward a teenage human boy. “This is Trip.” Trip irritably waves, then retreats to his room. Charlotte gestures instead toward a young deer girl, wearing a purple and white jacket over a grey shirt and black jeans, with a tuft of brown hair and a golden triangle hanging from a chain on her neck. “This is Penny, and --” As Penny waves, Charlotte gestures to a third teen.

The third teen is a horse with very pale brown fur and a light yellow mane that could pass for white in the right lighting. He has freckles, and a prominent white diamond on his head, and is wearing a green flannel shirt unbuttoned over a lilac t-shirt and jeans. “--and this is Harper,” finishes Charlotte. “He uses he/him pronouns.”

Hollyhock is still too shocked to say anything.

Penny clears her throat. “So, while you  _ adults  _ do boring  _ adult  _ things --”

“You’re nineteen,” says Harper. “And I’m eighteen.”

“Whatever.” She turns to Hollyhock. “Wanna come to our room?” 

“...Uh, yeah, sure.” As Penny and Harper both turn to leave, she follows, frowning. “You guys  _ still  _ share a room?”

“Not in college,” explains Harper. “But back in high school, yeah. And when we come visit.”

Hollyhock rubs the back of her neck nervously. “You two are really close, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess we are,” says Penny. She opens the door to a room with green-painted walls and a bunk bed with deep purple sheets. She and Harper sit on the bottom bunk, and Hollyhock hesitantly sits with them.

There’s a long silence.

“Okay,” says Penny. “I know what you’re thinking.” Grinning, she points at Harper. “He’s adopted, and  _ ostensibly  _ he’s not related to BoJack.”

Hollyhock raises an eyebrow. “But they  _ literally--” _

“Yeah, I know,” says Harper. “The diamond.” Groaning, he flops back onto the bed. “Ever since I was a baby, people have been telling me I look  _ just  _ like BoJack Horseman.”

“Me too!”

Penny’s eyes widen. “That’s a  _ terrible  _ thing to say to a baby!”

“You’re telling us,” deadpans Harper. He clears his throat, sitting back up. “So,  _ nobody  _ knows why I look so much like BoJack.”

“Honestly, you look more like his mom.”

Penny frowns. “You’ve seen BoJack’s mom?”

“Yeah. She’s bitchy, and has dementia. But honestly,” she chuckles nervously. “I saw, like,  _ one  _ photo of you on Herb’s Facebook before I met her, and the, the  _ whole  _ time she was with us, I kept thinking I knew her from somewhere. The resemblance is  _ uncanny.”  _ She smirks. “Maybe she cheated on Butterscotch. Then you can be my half-brother from another half-mother.” 

Harper shrugs. “They all go weirdly quiet and bring up a distraction when we try to ask, so there’s really no way to know. Our leading theory is that he had an affair with mom and they all agreed to keep it under wraps.”

“That’s  _ your  _ leading theory,” says Penny smugly. “Mine is mpreg.” Hollyhock bursts into laughter and she glares. “What? It makes sense!”

“It  _ really  _ doesn’t,” says Harper.

“It  _ does,”  _ she protests. “I mean, think about it. BoJack and Herb are  _ always  _ talking about how they’d never want to have kids. Herb was raised by seahorses -- he probably learned to carry kids.”

“That’s not something you can  _ learn.” _

“Herb and BoJack keep  _ insisting  _ that they’re  _ basically  _ family. You know, like they’re piggybacking off Charlotte’s stability. And, Harper’s your favourite. It makes sense!” She grins proudly. “Any questions?”

“Yeah,” says Hollyhock. “Which one of you took a biology class in high school?”

“We both did,” deadpans Harper. “Penny failed all her exams because she was reading fanfiction in class instead of taking notes.”

“Ah. That explains it.” She grins. “Wow, this really  _ is  _ a mystery, huh?”

“Yeah, it is.” 

“Good thing I came prepared.” She opens her bag and takes out a trench coat. “Time to get  _ sleuthing.” _

* * *

Their  _ sleuthing,  _ predictably, consists almost entirely of standing around BoJack and Charlotte holding big magnifying glasses and giggling, while BoJack and Charlotte stare at them with confusion and ask what the  _ hell  _ they’re up to. Each time, Hollyhock smiles sweetly and says  _ nothing. _

“She’s lying,” says Charlotte nonchalantly, as though all three teens aren’t still in the room. “She’s wearing a trench coat.  _ Nobody  _ wears a trench coat for non-suspicious reasons.” 

Herb gives her a defensive look. “PC’s ex-boyfriend Vincent wore a trench coat, and he was fine.”

BoJack throws up his hands in frustration. “He was  _ visibly  _ three kids in a trench coat.” 

Charlotte’s eyes widen. “Wait, what?” 

“Oh,” explains BoJack. “There’s this ‘guy’ our friend Princess Carolyn used to date. He was  _ visibly  _ three kids, stacked on top of each other in a trench coat. You know, like a cartoon character. His ‘name’ was Vincent Adultman, and he ‘worked’ at the  _ business factory.” _

“How could the  _ business factory  _ get away with child labour?!” protests Herb.

Charlotte tilts her head at him. “Are you  _ seriously  _ that stupid?”

“It’s not  _ stupid  _ to believe a guy who says he’s an adult.”

“It is if he has visible lumps for the other kid’s knees and a broomstick for a hand,” snarks BoJack. 

“And now you’re making fun of him for his deformity?! God, BJ, you’re an ass.”

“His  _ deformity?!  _ He’s -- he’s literally --”

Penny grabs Hollyhock’s shoulder, grinning. “Yeah, once they start debating like this, there’s no winning.” 

“Wanna go back to our room to keep up the detective work?” suggests Harper.

Hollyhock shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”

They go back to Harper and Penny’s room, and Harper takes out his laptop. “Maybe we should research some cool  _ detective  _ stuff.” He closes his current webpage, which is a Google search for ‘unisex names’ where the first result is oxymoronically advertising unisex names for girls, and types  _ sherlock holmes  _ into the search bar. After spending a few minutes browsing Sherlock’s Wikipedia page, which provides no information on how to  _ be  _ Sherlock, he frowns. “Uh, Hollyhock, what else do you have in your detective kit?”

“Just chloroform and magnifying glasses.”

“That’s a  _ shit  _ detective kit.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Penny’s eyes widen. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“I sure hope not,” says Hollyhock.

Harper waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. BoJack probably has drugs for breakfast.”

“Not often. Herb wants him to eat.”

“Herb drinks with him. And when they drink, they  _ drink.”  _ He mimes holding a bottle to his mouth and makes a  _ glug glug  _ noise. “They won’t even let Charlotte give us  _ coffee  _ because it’s ‘unhealthy’, but there’s nothing wrong with drinking until your liver goes out.”

“Herb drinks with him?” says Hollyhock, frowning. “I’ve neer seen them drink together, and BoJack drinks a  _ lot.” _

“Oh, he doesn’t drink every time BoJack does. But every time he drinks, BoJack drinks. And then they’re both drunk off their asses daring each other to drink more. And, of course, they’re so rich they can  _ keep  _ drinking more, until someone has the sense to stop them, and if nobody does, they wake up face down in a Walmart parking lot.”

“Sounds great,” she deadpans.

Penny’s eyes widen. “Oh!” She grins. “What if you could take some of Harper’s DNA back to California with you, and then use BoJack’s money to get it tested to see if they’re related?”

Harper sits up straight. “Would that work?”

“I don’t know, I failed biology. Look it up.”

Harper eagerly looks it up. “This … could work.”

“I’ll give you my phone number so you can text me the directions.” She opens her phone’s contact list, and then shows Harper her own contact. He types the number in, then googles the same search on his phone and texts her a link to the first result. “Now we just need  _ your  _ DNA.”

Harper nonchalantly plucks out one of his eyelashes. “I have trichotillomania.” He places the hair in a sandwich bag. “Is that enough, or should I spit, too?”

Penny groans. “You  _ really  _ don’t need to --”

“I  _ can  _ spit,” says Harper, puffing his chest out. “If you need someone to spit, I can  _ totally  _ do that.”

“Ignore him,” says Penny, shielding her face in embarrassment. “He’s trying to act like those cis men that spit all over the pavement.”

Hollyhock cringes. “People other than BoJack do that?”

“Herb does if you get him drunk enough.”

_ “Ew.” _

“Yeah, I know.”

“Cis men are sure something, huh?”

“I  _ constantly  _ wish I had the confidence of a mediocre cis man bragging about how he spits on the pavement every time he gets the chance and has never once washed his hands after pissing.”

“It would be bad enough if they just  _ didn’t  _ wash their hands, but the  _ bragging  _ kills me every time.”

“Oh, totally. It’s like they don’t even have the decency to be ashamed.” 

“And when you call them out, they have the  _ nerve  _ to act like  _ you’re  _ crazy.”

“I  _ know!  _ It’s insane.” She stands up. “Let’s go see what the grown-ups are doing.”

* * *

When they first come out, the answer is that the grown-ups are  _ still  _ arguing about whether or not this Vincent Adultman is three kids in a trench coat, but they at least have the decency to bring that to a close once they notice the three teens standing in the doorway. “Well,” says Herb. “We’d, uh -- we’d best be getting off, huh? Get to our hotel, rest up for the drive home.”

“I call shotgun,” says Hollyhock.

BoJack, who is pacing around a few feet away holding a phone to his ear, covers the receiver with his hand. “It’s  _ my  _ car,” he snaps. “I get shotgun by default.” He goes back to the phone call. “...What do you  _ mean,  _ you’re setting half of California on fire?! … Whose gender?!”

Hollyhock rolls her eyes. “I still think that rule’s unfair.”

“But it’s BoJack’s  _ rule,”  _ says Charlotte, grinning. 

“He would  _ never  _ let us ride shotgun,” says Peny crossing her arms. “One time, we saved up all our money to  _ bribe  _ him and he still wouldn’t.”

Hollyhock raises an eyebrow. “Why would he want money? He’s rich.”

“We assumed the reason he had so much money was because he  _ always  _ wanted more money. Turns out, he’s just an actor.”

BoJack hangs up the call. “I’ll, uh -- I’ll see you … kids, in, a few weeks, maybe?” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “When do you go back to college?”

“A few weeks,” answers Harper. “And we’re both adults.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say girls, but I corrected myself at the last minute to something still incorrect. You  _ are  _ pretty young by my standards.”

“And you’re  _ old,”  _ sneers Penny, not feeling any need to specify that it’s by her standards that his age is being judged. 

“We’d better get going. Shit’s  _ crazy  _ back home. Our friend Sarah Lynn’s threatening arson.”

Hollyhock’s eyes widen. “Wait,  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn?”

“Yeah, she can be annoying like that sometimes. But, you get used to it.”

Harper grins, elbowing Hollyhock in the ribs. “Gonna do some  _ detective  _ work, until we meet again?”

“Of course,” replies Hollyhock. She notices Charlotte, Herb, and BoJack staring at them. “...Inside joke.”

“Yeah,” adds Harper unconvincingly. “That.”

“Well, don’t be strangers!” says Herb, opening the front door and beginning to walk out.

“Of course not!” says Penny.

“Yeah,” agrees Harper. “And, keep an eye on my social media, okay? I’ll probably post there when I pick a new name.”

BoJack blinks. “New name?” 

“...Yeah?” says Harper, raising an eyebrow at him. “You know, as part of the transition?”

“...Oh, yeah.” He frowns. “Yeah, I, uh, I didn’t think of that.”

“Oh.” He anxiously looks down at his sneakers. “But, it’s okay, isn’t it? Like, you don’t mind?”

BoJack hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Well, actually --”

Herb shoves a hand into his mouth before he can say anything more. “Don’t listen to BJ!” he says to Harper, grinning widely and waving his other hand dismissively. “Who  _ cares  _ what he thinks? It’s not even  _ his  _ name!” Still, grinning, he gently  _ herds  _ BoJack out of the house and toward the car, gesturing for Hollyhock to follow. It’s not until they’re all out of sight that he removes the smile from his face. “What the  _ hell,  _ BJ?!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah Lynn hosts a gender reveal party; BoJack gets chloroformed.

There’s smoke, somewhere, but it’s not his problem unless he accidentally stumbles upon the source. That’s been his life philosophy for the past thirty-odd years, and so far it’s served him remarkably well, resulting in no burn injuries and minimal lung damage. So, he tells himself that whatever he can smell is just kitchen chaos and not a has-been pop star making good on her threats, and blocks it out of his mind. 

“You seen Hollyhock?”

“Nope,” answers Herb. “Haven’t seen her since the start of the party.”

“Shit, I hope she’s not drinking.” He pauses. “Unless it’s normal for seventeen-year-olds to illegally drink at parties, in which case, I hope she’s drinking a normal amount.” He tries to say it in a way that doesn’t make it obvious that he started drinking so young, and was so dissociated from the world and isolated from his peers throughout his entire high school career, that he has no reference point at all for what healthy exploration of underage drinking looks like, or what a normal teenagehood is like at all. He doesn’t succeed.

“I don’t think she would,” says Herb. “When I started talking about alcohol, she explained the  _ mathematical formula  _ to calculate how long someone has to wait before their blood alcohol concentration goes back to zero, based on their gender, weight, and how many standard drinks they had over how long a period of time.”

“Yeah, I don’t think someone who’s too drunk to drive is gonna be in any mood to figure that out.”

“That’s what I said. So she suggested writing the formula down so you don’t forget.” He grins. “So, if she  _ does  _ get drunk she’ll have no  _ idea  _ what to do, but, she probably won’t.”

“Wonder what Sarah Lynn’s gonna say.” It’s far from the first time he’s been roped into hosting someone else’s party, but it’s just as annoying as it was back in the early 2000s. It doesn’t help that, well, if BoJack got a dollar for every year that Sarah Lynn has emotionally matured, he would have fifteen cents. His own emotional maturity is a little better, and would earn him twenty cents and a pack of used gum.

It’s better when he’s managing the party, because then it’s for  _ him,  _ and that means it’s relatively easy for him to justify pawning all of the supervision duties off onto Herb so that he can  _ have fun.  _ Though, he thinks Herb would be less inclined to put up with that responsibility now of all times. BoJack isn’t the sort of person who responds well to  _ any  _ responsibility, and just having to be vaguely aware of whether or not his own house is burning down while he has a fun night makes him bitter.

But, Sarah Lynn had  _ wanted  _ to have a party that involved setting half of California on fire. A non-flammable party hosted in his house was the best compromise he could make.

Sarah Lynn taps her microphone. “Uh, hello?” She’s definitely been working on stage for long enough to be able to figure out whether or not it’s on, but she tests it a few more times to get everyone’s attention. Then, she clears her throat. “Hello, friends!” BoJack knows it’s a lie; Sarah Lynn has maybe three friends in total, and several more sycophants and enablers. “So, here’s the thing,” she begins. “Back in 1991, I had this toy frog.”

BoJack silently raises an eyebrow.

“It was a  _ really  _ good toy frog,” she continues. “You know, one of the ones with the satiny fabric and sand instead of stuffing? So you could have a good time throwing it around. Yeah, it was  _ great.  _ I went through this phase where I was, like,  _ seven,  _ and I was  _ obsessed  _ with that frog, I brought it to work  _ every  _ day. And then …” Her face falls. “Then BoJack got drunk and set it on fire.” She clears her throat. “Anyway, this is my gender reveal party. My pronouns are they/them.”

BoJack blinks. “Wait, what?”

They casually step down from their makeshift stage, which is just BoJack’s coffee table. “You heard me.” 

“What’s this about a frog?”

Herb strategically ignores him, focusing on Sarah Lynn. “Congrats on coming out!” He grins. “Are you planning on changing your name?”

They shrug. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, you’d better decide. BJ requires at  _ least  _ a month’s notice on any names you might consider me, since it’s so  _ important  _ to him that he gets to  _ approve  _ of everyone else’s names.” He wriggles his eyebrows. BoJack groans.

“You can’t  _ still  _ be going on about that.”

Herb twitches. “Why  _ wouldn’t  _ I still be going on about it? We talked about it briefly,  _ immediately  _ after leaving New Mexico, and then Hollyhock told us to shut up, and we haven’t even  _ acknowledged  _ it since.”

“...And?”

Sarah Lynn raises an eyebrow. “What the  _ hell  _ are you two talking about?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” says Herb, waving a hand dismissively. “Just, a family friend of ours came out as trans, and BoJack threw a hissy fit when he was going to change his name.”

“I did  _ not  _ throw a hissy fit,” says BoJack indignantly. He pauses. “I was  _ going  _ to throw a hissy fit, but then you  _ rudely  _ interrupted.”

“That is  _ not  _ the great defense you think it is! Not even  _ remotely!”  _

“Why do  _ you  _ care, anyway?” snaps BoJack. “He’s not even  _ your  _ kid.”

The argument is so mind-bogglingly  _ stupid  _ that it takes Herb several seconds to compose himself. “He’s -- I’m -- you -- I -- he’s not  _ your  _ kid either, you jackass. Did all of the alcohol kill your brain cells, or were you just born stupid?”

Sarah Lynn clears their throat. “Well, since you two seem content to continue your discourse --”

“We’re not,” interrupts Herb. 

“I’ll go enjoy myself.”

“Please don’t,” says BoJack. “Have you seen my sister?” Sarah Lynn tilts their head at him. “She’s, uh, around this high, a horse, sort of brown hair, with a white diamond on her forehead? Yeah, I know, I was an only child the last time we talked -- it’s complicated. Anyway, have you seen her?”

They pause. “Can’t say I have.” Their eyes light up, arms snapping to chest level with excitement. “Why? Does she have  _ lore?” _

“Sure, if that’s what makes it easier for you to comprehend her existence.” He’s well past the point of bothering to argue with Sarah Lynn. “I’ll, uh -- I’ll see you later tonight, I guess. And if not, I’ll see you the next time you throw a party in my house.” 

“You should come over more often,” says Herb. “You know, for reasons unrelated to partying. Come visit just to play  _ UNO  _ or something.” 

“Eh.” They shrug. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

He’s three beers deep when he sees her, and well past any thought of texting Herb to let him know she’s safe and sober has vanished from his mind. He’s been avoiding Herb since he walked off during the lengthy silence that followed Sarah Lynn’s departure, before Herb could start telling him off. “Oh, hey, Hollyhock.”

She noticeably jolts, and then tries to relax. “Hey.”

“What’s with the --” He gestures vaguely, trying to remember the word. “...Trench coat? Detective outfit?”

“It’s the most formal outfit I had with multiple pockets.” 

“Ah.” He frowns. “What do you need pockets for?”

“...Nothing.”

“Herb is being  _ such  _ an ass.”

Hollyhock groans. “Oh, God.”

“What?” He throws up his hands in frustration. “He  _ is  _ being unreasonable!  _ All  _ I said was that Harper shouldn’t change his name, and --”

“Literally,  _ why  _ do you care about Harper’s name?” She raises an eyebrow. “Like, who  _ is  _ Harper, anyway? Why do you  _ know  _ him?”

BoJak glares. “Why do I  _ know  _ him?!” he repeats incredulously. “I know him because he’s Charlotte’s adopted kid, and Charlotte and I go  _ way  _ back.”

“Okay, so, he’s just some kid you  _ happen  _ to know?” Her eyebrow remains raised. “And you care  _ this  _ much about him changing his name? His name that  _ you  _ probably didn’t even help pick?”

BoJack remains silent, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

“Okay,” says Hollyhock. “I’m just gonna say it. Harper looks  _ exactly  _ like your mom.”

There’s a long pause. “...No, he doesn’t.”

“He  _ clearly  _ does!” She throws up her hands in frustration.  _ “Why  _ are we turning this into some weird elephant-in-the-room thing where nobody even  _ acknowledges  _ that your friend’s kid is  _ clearly  _ related to you? Did you have an affair with Charlotte or something?”

“What? No!” Hollyhock narrows her eyes at him. His tone indicates that he’s either genuinely shocked by the accusation, or just pulling lies out of his ass, and knowing BoJack it could easily be either. “Look, I -- I dunno why Harper looks so much like me, okay? Maybe Charlotte adopted him because he reminded her of me, maybe it’s a coincidence, but I  _ really  _ wouldn’t know.”

Hollyhock smirks. “Really?”

BoJack frowns, narrowing his eyes. “Yeah, really.”

“Hmm, let me check that.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a damp cloth, standing on her tip-toes to hold it to BoJack’s snout.

He sniffs it. “...Smells like chloroform.” He eagerly breathes in another lungful of it.

* * *

“I just don’t get why he needs to be such a  _ dick  _ about it,” he continues, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Like, it’s not even  _ his  _ kid.”

Mr. Peanutbutter nods pensively. “Mm-hmm. I understand completely. Well, I’m  _ happy  _ to spend tonight explaining how you can get BoJack to openly talk about his frustrations so you can resolve this argument, and -- oh!” He turns sharply, ears pointing straight up in excitement. “My good friend Eric! I love how your turquoise-dyed pigtails match your binder.” He walks off to greet Eric, leaving Herb fuming alone.

Groaning, he scans the crowd for any sign of BoJack or Hollyhock. He finds neither. Todd’s a few feet away talking to a stranger, so he waves at him until he notices Herb. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey,” says Herb. “You seen BJ?”

“Not since the start of the night. Why?”

“Eh…” He grimaces. “We’re kind of in a fight.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” His eyes widen and Todd stares at him. “What? You two are  _ really  _ bad at hiding when you’re pissed at each other. The  _ whole  _ atmosphere is just, like,  _ tense.” _

“...Oh.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously, then grabs a beer. “It’s the  _ stupidest  _ thing, honestly.”

“Hmm?”

“Some trans kid we just  _ happen  _ to know is changing his name, and BJ’s throwing a hissy fit because ‘his birth name is  _ already  _ gender neutral’.” He throws up his hands in frustration. “Newsflash, jackass, it’s not  _ your  _ name.”

Todd raises an eyebrow. “Wait, why does he want to change his name if his birth name is already androgynous? What’s the  _ point?” _

“Yeesh, I dunno.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s because having it be used as a feminine name for him  _ tainted  _ it. Maybe he wants to feel like he’s becoming a different person. Maybe he just thinks it’s a cool thing to do. But, it doesn’t  _ matter,  _ because it’s not  _ our  _ call to make.” 

“Yeah, you’re right.” He frowns. “Any idea why BoJack’s so upset about it?”

He takes a sip from his beer. “Not a clue.” He gulps. “Which is why I want to talk to him. He’s been avoiding me all night.”

“You sure he’s avoiding you? He might just be shitfaced or passed out.” He chuckles nervously. “That’s what he usually is at this point in the party.”

“...Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “You know, it’s not his fault he drinks so much.”

“Hmm?”

“He’s -- he’s got a lot going on. You can’t blame him for how he copes.”

“Okay, but, we can  _ totally  _ blame him for how he copes.” He raises an eyebrow. “What about everyone  _ else  _ who’s depressed, and  _ can’t  _ just drink the pain away? They have to actually  _ cope.  _ And find some  _ healthy  _ coping methods, like, I don’t know, therapy, or yoga, or fish oil supplements --”

Herb raises an eyebrow. “Fish oil supplements are a healthy coping method?”

“I dunno, I read online somewhere that they can help with depression.”

“What the  _ hell  _ is a fish oil  _ supplement?”  _ He gestures wildly. “Like, iron supplements are meant to  _ supplement  _ the iron you already get from your diet. Are we  _ meant  _ to be eating fish oil? I’m not a goddamn fish.”

“It was just a suggestion.”

“It was a  _ dumb  _ suggestion! You know, my high school boyfriend was a fish. He cheated on me with an octopus, and I was so pissed I nearly got myself outed by burning all the shit he gave me.”

“Huh.” He frowns. “Wait, didn’t you live  _ underwater?” _

“Yeah, and?”

“I just, I can’t help but wonder --  _ how  _ can you --”

He’s cut off mid-sentence when Sarah Lynn appears, hanging upside-down from a light fixture. They ignore Todd entirely, and say to Herb, matter-of-factly, “Your sister-in-law chloroformed your husband.”

Herb spits out his drink.  _ “What?!” _

Sarah Lynn looks at him like he’s an idiot. They drop down from the light fixture with a loud  _ thud _ , and rise to their feet with ease. “Your  _ sister-in-law,”  _ they repeat, slowly and carefully like they’re talking to a small child.  _ “Chloroformed  _ your  _ husband.” _

Herb blinks. “Wait, what?” As Sarah Lynn clicks their teeth, ready to say the exact same thing a third time in a more patronizing tone, he manages to get out, “Hollyhock chloroformed BJ?”

Sarah Lynn nods. Todd’s eyes widen. “Yeesh, this is crazy even by  _ my  _ standards. And as we all now, I have  _ very  _ high standards for tomfoolery.” 

“I have  _ several  _ questions,” says Herb. “but the biggest and potentially most concerning is  _ where  _ did a seventeen-year-old get chloroform?”

They shrug. “I dunno. I just walked in on her trying to wake him up, and she freaked out and explained what had happened, and then told me I could have the rest if I promised not to tell you.”

“But you  _ did  _ tell me.”

“Yeah.” They take a damp cloth out of their pocket and sniff it. “Mmm.” They fall to the ground with a loud  _ thud. _

Todd stares at them. “...Wow.”

“Of all the things that have happened involving Sarah Lynn, BJ, and illegal drugs … this is  _ easily  _ one of them.”

“You should probably go find BoJack now,” says Todd.

“Yeah, I guess I should.” He hesitates, then gulps down the rest of his beer. Todd’s eyes widen at his pace. He pauses. “...This beer isn’t very strong.”

“...It isn’t?” says Todd nervously.

“It isn’t,” he confirms. “Needs something to supplement it.”

Todd hesitates. “...Like?”

Herb, without hesitation, tosses the bottle in the general direction of the trash can. “Fish oil.”

* * *

He finds BoJack lying face-down on the coffee table. At a party, this normally wouldn’t be particularly notable, but this time … is no exception. It’s unclear how much of his tired, clearly inebriated state is from the chloroform and how much is just the alcohol. He manages to remove his face from the coffee table for long enough to say, “Oh, hey, babe.”

“Hey,” Herb half-sighs. “Did Hollyhock  _ actually  _ chloroform you?”

BoJack pauses, as if considering this. “Yeah.”

“... _ Why?!” _

“That’s what I said,” he answers, shrugging.

“And what did she say?”

“That once you have chloroform, you can’t just  _ not  _ use it.”

“What, so she just  _ happened  _ to have chloroform?!”

“Yeah, I don’t question it.” 

“But you  _ should!  _ You  _ need  _ to question it!” He sits down on the coffee table, frowning deeply. “You see, what I worry about, is -- is that when we get into the habit of just  _ not questioning  _ all the crazy bullshit that happens around us, that sets a precedent of being  _ complicit  _ in whatever the hell goes on. And that means that once the people around you start doing stuff that’s actually  _ bad  _ instead of just  _ weird,  _ nobody’s going to bother to call that out, because they’ve already created a dynamic where  _ nothing  _ gets called out.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow at him, sitting up himself. “Geez, are you sure it’s  _ that  _ deep?”

“Of  _ course  _ it’s that deep. Hollyhock  _ drugged  _ you.”

“So? I’ve done worse to myself without even trying.”

“We don’t know where she  _ got  _ the chloroform from.” His voice breaks. “We’re meant to be looking after her.”

BoJack’s eyes widen. “Shit.” He hops off of the table. “You need more alcohol.”

Herb crosses his arms defensively. “I do not.”

“Yes, you do. You’re sad and anxious.” He hands him another beer. “Drink up.”

Herb takes it, hesitantly. “Drinking won’t solve my problems.”

“Oh, nothing solves anybody’s problems.” He waves a hand dismissively. “I mean, what problems do you want to solve, anyway? Being rude at Cathy’s party that one time? Some random thing that happened eighteen goddamn years ago?”

Herb glares. “Shut up.”

“Aww, did I hit a nerve? I’m gonna smash your --”

“Shut  _ up!”  _ He takes a sip, then crosses his arms again. BoJack grimaces.

“Babe…”

“We’re meant to be taking  _ care  _ of her. And she just  _ drugged  _ you? Who  _ does  _ that?”

“Baby, it’s gonna be okay.”

“I was the one who wanted her to come. If anything goes wrong, it’s on me.”

“It’s not on you. I’m responsible for her too.”

“You can’t even be responsible for your own breakfast.”

BoJack shoots him a defensive look. “Hey, I made myself a pop tart this morning.”

“That’s a snack, not a meal.”

“Everything’s gonna be okay.” He sits back down on the table and wraps an arm around Herb’s shoulders. “Hollyhock is seventeen. She’s nearly an adult. When we screw up, we’re not irreparably damaging her and showing her a warped idea of what life is like, we’re just … screwing up. And sure, it makes her look at us differently, but it won’t  _ hurt  _ her.”

Herb takes a deep breath. “I guess you’re right.”

“You don’t need to freak out about every little thing here. Hollyhock’s not our kid.”

Herb takes another deep breath, glares, and murmurs, “Neither’s Harper.”

BoJack’s reaction is immediate. His eyes are wide as he moves off of the table and takes a step back from Herb. “We don’t need to argue about this.”

“We do too,” snaps Herb. “You have  _ no _ right to try to dictate how he should transition.”

“His name is  _ already  _ gender-neutral.”

“Doesn’t matter! It’s not our choice to make. He’s not even  _ our  _ kid.” He sighs. “I don’t know  _ why  _ you care so much about it.”

BoJack is silent, glaring, for a long time. Finally, he says, “Yeah, you do.”


End file.
